[ga] Re: Single Letter Domains

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand <Harald@Alvestrand.no>]

Dear mr. Kaufman:

These are my particular responses to the issues you raise, and have no 
particular weight; I have asked you before to join the GA list if you want 
to participate in a discussion about them.

You raise two interesting points in your message:

1) Should single letter domains be delegated under .com, .net and .org?
2) If they should be delegated, who should be the recipient of the delegation?

The first question then leads to the third question:

3) Who decides what domains to delegate under a top level domain?

We have multiple conflicting precedents on this question:

- The NSI decision not to delegate domain names containing the "network seven"
   was dropped recently, after a period where NSI as a registry permitted it,
   even while NSI the registrar did not.

- The attempt to sell .com names ending in a dash was stopped after an ICANN
   decision was made that such names were not within the specifications

On the question of single letter domains, there are precedents on this in 
other contexts; the .dk domain allows them, the .no domain does not, for 
instance. So clearly this has been decided in the past on a per-domain basis.

There is as far as I know no precedent for requiring a registy to register 
a name at all. While the trend recently has been that many registries will 
be happy to sell any name you want to buy, many (like .se, .gov or .int) 
are operated under far more restrictive rules. Again, on a per domain basis.
I thus have a problem seeing the precedent for forcing the sale of "k.com", 
given that the policy in place is not being unfairly applied - nobody can 
get it.

All that said, I don't see at the moment any particular reason for 
escrowing those 26 domains in .com - your request for a change of policy 
may have merit, if we can figure out who has the responsibility to change 
that policy.

On the question of who gets the domain, I am far less uncertain: If a 
policy change is decided, there must be a fair method of allocating the 
domains.
"First-come-first-served" has served us well in the past, but in this 
instance, it is likely to be decided on sub-millisecond timing, given the 
number of people who will take an interest.

A more explicit form of lottery will probably seem fairer in this 
particular case.

My thoughts.

                       Harald T. Alvestrand


--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, EDB Maxware, Norway
Harald.Alvestrand@edb.maxware.no

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