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[ga] URGENT: Moratorium on all additions to confusing GTLDs and ccTLDs Required.
- To: ga@dnso.org
- Subject: [ga] URGENT: Moratorium on all additions to confusing GTLDs and ccTLDs Required.
- From: "matt hooker" <matthooker@hotmail.com>
- Date: Sun, 21 Nov 1999 17:54:37 PST
- Cc: wg-c@dnso.org, wg-b@dnso.org, announce@dnso.org, amadeu@nominalia.com, bburr@ntia.doc.gov, apincus@doc.gov, eric.menge@sba.gov, edyson@edventure.com, apisan@servidor.unam.mx, quaynor@ghana.com, tom.bliley@mail.house.gov
- Sender: owner-ga@dnso.org
November 19, 1999
To the ICANN Board of Directors, The entire ICANN Membership, the DNSO, the
General Assembly, Working Group C, all other Working Groups, and to
everyone, everywhere concerned about allowing the Internet to realize its
fullest potential;
A Proposal for an Immediate Moratorium on the Addition of any New
gTLDs or ccTLDs; and a Proposal to Restructure the current TLD system.
by Matthew Hooker. Webmaster@Net-Speed.com, matthooker@hotmail.com
I, Matthew Hooker, am an active participant in the General Assembly,
as well as Working Groups C and B. I am a recent arrival to this process,
having joined at the beginning of the recent November 1999 meetings in Los
Angeles.
I have found that there is a tremendous push, to approve new gTLD,s
as quickly as possible, and as many as possible. This push is due
to ideological, political or financial interests that have nothing
to do with the real interests of the Internet as a whole. I am
calling for an immediate moratorium of the approval of new
gTLDs. This issue needs to have much more debate, with a much greater
public participation. This debate needs to be publicized.
I will summarize my arguments below as to why no new gTLDs should be
allowed, as well as my proposal to consider a restructuring of the
entire gTLD and ccTLD system, which has already become somewhat of a
free-for-all, and is leading (should more TLDs be introduced) to chaos
and anarchy.
In short, I want the Internet to be all things to all people, but most
importantly, I want to see an Internet that allows for easy, fast and
clear and understandable interaction by humans, among humans and for
humans.
Some potentially fatal mistakes have already been made that I believe
need to be corrected if the Internet is to reach its full potential.
I realize that many of you reading this have already made up your minds that
you will favor the introduction of new TLDs, and believe that you have heard
all of the arguments before. Please reconsider. I believe what I will
present here is a compelling argument to allow no new TLDs, and indeed
restructure the present system. This argument has nothing whatsoever to do
with registries, for-profit or not; it has nothing ideological, financial or
political about it. It is for the greater good of the Internet as a whole
and humans everywhere.
At the ICANN, DNSO and working group meetings this November in Los
Angeles, I was accused, by those I discussed this with, of the following
errors, which I will rebut: being on the "dark side!", wanting to turn the
Internet into a directory, wanting to preserve the current power structure,
wanting to preserve my own financial self interests. (Yes, I own a number of
web sites and domain names which I am developing into web sites and
businesses.)
I heard many arguments by those supporting more TLDs like: "in every
revolution there is an overthrow of the existing ruling class", "the
Internet is controlled by big business and the introduction of new
TLDs is the only way to change this", "there is too much domain
speculation and we must introduce new TLDs to reduce or eliminate
this", "there are no more good domain names available", and "we should
introduce new TLDs to make more available. Many of the people in
favor of introducing new TLDs favor an unlimited number of them.
Regardless of your opinion regarding the veracity of these statements,
the point is that these statements have nothing to do with the real
issue that I am addressing: A structure for the Domain Name Service
( DNS ) that allows for clear and easy human usage of the Internet.
The DNS is supposed to make the Internet human-friendly or
user-friendly. Unfortunately, the incorrect implementation of a
good idea has led to a confusing and hard to use Internet, which
requires the use of "search engines" and "directories" that are
very complex, most often don't give the user what they want, and
take a lot of time to use. Although some may say this current system
"works", it doesn't work nearly as well as it could or should.
The current system of ccTLDs also has served to severely limit the
potential and ease of use of the Internet. The Internet can be a truly
global, easy to use community. It can be all things to all people.
If text or voice are used to communicate, then the only boundaries
should be those of language, and machine translation will soon
eliminate this boundary. Instead of creating such a truly global
community, we have, with the ccTLDs simply extended the status quo
of current national, political boundaries to the Internet - the one
place which could be above all national and political borders and
boundaries. So, instead of having just 1 global Internet, we really
have over 250, and many people want to increase this number! Instead
of having 1 common place where everyone can form a community, we have
hundreds. Thus for a Spanish speaking person, there are over 20 Internets in
the Spanish language - corresponding to the national/political boundaries
and ccTLDs. For the English speaker, not only are there the various
english-speaking ccTLDs, but there are also the .COM, .NET and .ORG, with a
huge push to add 6 to 10 more for a "test period" leading to hundreds more!
Just as bad is the fact that these three gTLDs are supposed to be used for
different types of businesses or web sites, whether they be for-profit,
Internet-related, or non-profit; yet these is no way to enforce this rule,
so the rule or guideline means nothing. How absurd.
Instead of bringing the world together, these gTLD and ccTLD extensions are
separating it, mostly for the sake of more money to be made and issues of
control. In addition, there are now a potential of over 250 homes or web
sites for any given name, whether it be "Sony" or "GreatCars" or
"VirtualOffice." This is extremely confusing, and does not lead to human
ease of use, but to chaos.
Ideally there should be just 1 way to find "Sony" or "GreatCars" or
"VirtualOffice", to take 3 examples. Why? So humans can use the Internet
quickly, easily and understandably, without the usage of bots, search
engines, etc. One of the members of the Names Council responded to my
argument with "let the search engines do it" (referring to finding a site or
some information for a user). However this is not the best way.
Search engines should not be required for a user to go to Sony's site. In
addition, search engines, which will have to be used, of course, for many
things, and which can provide an excellent service and function, are
for-profit businesses with agendas of their own. Obviously there will be one
"Sony" and one "GreatCars" in each language. This is as it should be, for a
common language is necessary for comprehension or communication at the
present time. But there should only be 1 in each language, otherwise
confusion sets in. Adding any new TLDs will make this situation even worse.
Many ccTLDs are being used globally, so the problem is getting worse by the
month. For those interested in adding new gTLDs, I would respond that there
already are many of them, and at least dozens more to come: the ccTLDs
which, of course also can function as gTLDs. A partial current list of
ccTLDs acting as gTLDs:
- .NU - this means "nude in French and Portuguese, and "now" in Swedish, and
some other Scandinavian languages, and "in a jiffy" in German, just to name
a few. It is also being used as a general gTLD.
- .MD - this is being used for medical related sites for english speakers.
- .TO - this is being used as a general gTLD. It also has meanings in
several languages.
- .AM - this is being used for radio and music sites.
- .ID - I spoke with a member from Indonesia who informed me that big plans
were underway to market this ccTLD as a gTLD for information or
identification.
How long before other ccTLDs with extensions that have a meaning in one or
more languages are used globally? There are already hundreds of approved
gTLDs among the ccTLD's. To add more is absurd, confusing and leads to more
chaos.
The aspect of the Internet that has the most to do with almost all users is
the name associated with a web site. We humans use names, not numbers, and
that is why a particular name should not be duplicated on the internet.
Having "extensions" like .MD, .COM, .NET, .ID, ... only makes things more
confusing, and web sites more difficult to find for humans. The addition of
more gTLDs like .firm, .shop, etc will make things far worse for humans. We
humans remember a name, not a name plus an extension. It is easy to remember
GreatCars, to use a random example, and to remember what the name means, and
what going to that site will give one. These three items are what, to the
vast majority of people, the Internet should do. Obviously, the Internet can
and will do and be much more than this, but these three functions are
necessary, and easy to achieve. To have to remember and differentiate
between GreatCars.com, GreatCars.net, GreatCars.org, GreatCars.nu,
GreatCars.to, GreatCars.ID, GreatCars.co.uk, and any other extensions, of
which there are more all the time, is too difficult to do for humans, and
defeats a primary purpose of the Internet, and leads to confusion.
To add a .firm, .shop, .biz, etc. will only make the matter much worse. (I
use GreatCars as a random example and have no connection with it (or should
I say them! - my point exactly!) whatsoever, nor do I even know of its
existence.)
REBUTTAL OF OPPOSING ARGUMENTS
I would like to rebut a few opposing arguments before I explain how we can
improve the current system.
The argument that there are no more available good domain names, so we
should add new gTLDs. Adding new gTLDs will only serve to confuse the user
and make it harder for the user to find what they are looking for. Using our
example, in addition to GreatCars, there can also be FineCars, SuperCars,
GoodGars, BestCars, FastCars, HotCars, GreatNewCars, GreatUsedCars,
GreatCarsOnSale, GreatCarsNow, GreatAutos, GreatJeeps, GreatAutomobiles,
GreatVehicles... the list goes on and on... also: LosAngelesGreatCars,
GreatCarsLA, GreatCarsNY, GreatCarsLondon, GreatCarsBombay, ... There are
enough english combinations of potential auto sites for everyone. True,
there is only one exact "GreatCars", and if that is the name you want, then
buy it. If you can't afford it, find another name, but not another
"GreatCars" that will only serve to confuse the public and users.
The argument that registrars won't be able to make money on new TLDs.
Too bad. The Internet being all that it can be, and reaching its potential,
is more important.
Obviously, it is going to be difficult, because of existing parties, with
their own interests, to bring the DNS system back to where it should be -
just 1 truly global internet. But this is possible to do, and in a later
e-mail I will address and provide a solution to this task. Impossible is
not part of my vocabulary.
For the moment, however, it is imperative that we not give in to a small
group of people who have selfish political, financial or ideological
agendas, and who wish to add more gTLDs to the already confusing, and ever
increasing amount and range of TLD being used.
We must put an immediate moritorium on the addition of any new gTLDs.
There is no consensus in Working Group C. I am adamently opposed to any more
TLDs. I believe I am not the only one. This, and other working groups have
been operating without any real public participation or publicity, and the
stakes are too high for this to remain so.
The ability of the Internet to reach its full potential depends on us
allowing it to have a structure that can best enable human use. We have
already gone far in the wrong direction, and adding more TLDs will increase
the problem. Let's put a stop to all this, and then give ourselves some time
to fomulate a plan to correct the errors which have been made.
For the sake of the Internet,
Matt Hooker
Webmaster@Net-Speed.com
matthooker@hotmail.com
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