[nc-org] Re: ORG and COM

[Cary Karp <ck@nrm.se>]

Quoting Milton:

> I think it's pretty clear that Cary Karp's statement that ORG is
> currently "pretty much a clone of COM" is false. There are
> literally hundreds of thousands of names, such as att.org, which
> differ markedly, and in the expected way, from their .com
> counterpart.

I was not referring to the contents of the two TLDs. I was referring
to their operational policies. The last time I looked, when VeriSign
was asked to register a second-level name in the one, it recommended
the registration of the same string (if available) in the other, and
NET as well.

> But it seems that Verisign could produce a precise quantitative
> measure of the level of duplication.

If our TF is on a track towards recommending that newORG be operated
without any eligibility restrictions, what need is there for concern
with the demographic differences between the registrant bases of
oldORG and COM, or any other unrestricted TLD?  I agree that it
would be interesting to know if people tend to gravitate towards
nominally distinct TLDs that are otherwise operated on the same
eligibility basis, for some reason other than the availability of
desired lower-level name strings. I'm just not sure how this concern
relates to the present exercise. An unrestricted domain is an
unrestricted domain, regardless of the reasons for it being so.

> It is reasonable enough to want to prevent ORG from becoming a clone
> of COM.

How do you envision controlling the attributes of any TLD registrant
base without articulating registration criteria that differentiate
the one TLD from the other?

/Cary