Re: [ga-org] First Ten Policy Questions

[Alexander Svensson <alexander@svensson.de>]

Dear fellow ga-org readers,

I believe we have to ask one question /before/ we
can go into questions like UDRP, fee structure and
registry operator.

0) What shall be the *purpose* of .org?

E.g.
(a) a TLD for non-commercial purposes (and all
    current registrants?)

(b) a TLD for non-commercial organizations (and
    all current registrants?)

(c) an uncharterted TLD (with or without UDRP)

(d) ...?

Ad (a)
The definition of (a) would include personal
purposes, (b) would not. It seems to me that there
will be agreement that all current registrants
will keep their .org domain name. If that is the
case, is there a point in changing .org's purpose?
There is currently a wide variety of uses, even
though I suspect that the large majority of
commercial .org registrations simply are defensive
registrations of companies already holding the
same string in .com.

Ad (b)
The definition of organization would inevitably lead
to trouble. There are of course huge differences
between organizations in various countries of the
world, and it is not easy to determine their status.
E.g. ICANNwatch.org is a non-commercial network of
contributors, but as far as I understand it does not
have a specific legal status.

Ad (c)
One could argue that instead of changing the status
of .org, ICANN should create a TLD specifically for
non-commercial purposes in the next round of
applications and let .org remain an unchartered TLD.
However, we know that this will take time and that
the current application process does not seem to
attract many not-for-profit proposals. It's easier
to take over an existing, well-known TLD than to
make a proposal for a new one which would be faced
with enormous start-up costs.

Best regards,
/// Alexander
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