Pinky3 points to this story on Yahoo! which says: "In the much-awaited decision, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) limited the term of VeriSign rights to the .org name to the end of 2002, and the .net name to the start of 2006. VeriSign, the operator of the world's largest domain name registries, would keep rights to the lucrative .com name through November 10, 2007, and have the right to renew this agreement for a new four-year term if it meets certain criteria." VeriSign has the .com domain locked up pretty well already, at least until 2007, and now (for Internet time at least) indefinitely. In 2011, I bet VeriSign will point out the awful mess (think of the risk!) of trying to redistribute control of .com to anyone else.

One of the things I try to focus on with Ask Slashdot questions are issues involving trademarks and the big guy trying to rob the little guy out of a name, or a domain that they may have had for years. Although this was necessary to stop the domain squatters out to make a quick buck, it seems to have turned into a corporate right to harass everyone. Long before the internet was a household name, people registered domains or created project names that they didn't think would cause problems and now, years later, they are finding out how wrong they were, and how the laws can rob their project's identity. What follows is a question regarding SGI their quest to go after anyone with any name starting with "Open" or containing "GL". How long is it, before corporations begin to carve up the English dictionary and we won't be able to use a single word without following it with "(tm)"?