[comments-gtlds] New gTLDs

[bill parducci <bill@parducci.net>]

I wholeheartedly agree with the consensus opinion from the 3/20/00
Working Group C meeting.  The expansion of gTLDs is crucial to the
health and further growth of the Internet.  I think it is important to
keep in mind the small fraction of the global population that is
currently taking advantage of the domain naming system -- something that
will continue to change -- yet, virtually all newcomers will be faced
with selecting an obscure ".com" name or two digit 'geography codes'
domains, which are inferior for commercial practices.

The argument that additional gTLDs will confuse the consumer is absurd. 
The WHOLE POINT of a vast majority registered commercial domain names is
to create a mnemonic. Quick, give me the name of an online bookstore.
Amazon.com? Gee, one would think that a forest would not be selling
books. One could argue that this is the result to termendous marketing,
but I would challenge anyone to come up with a name that is registerable
*today* (forget about two years from now!) that could be as easily
remembered. booksandstuff13.com is not going to cut it.

Furthermore, the argument concerning trademark issues -- while complex
-- has NO bearing on this topic. Why? because ICANN is not a judicial
entity. If you follow the logic of the opposing viewpoint,  the Internet
should never have been started because it represents an opportunity of
for agencies to create association by misrepresentation by its very
nature.  Defense of trademark is a costly and time consuming process but
it has nothing to do with the *creation* of gTLDs themselves no more
than the addition of a new area code. While I appreciate the concern as
to what private individuals and corporations may do within new
namespace, I don't believe that future avenues of commerce should be
shutdown by ICANN because of potential "misuse" of the medium. In my
opinion, ICANN has been charted to guide the logical structure of the
Internet, not pioneer international corporate law.

Finally, the addition of gTLDs could potentially be used to help resolve
difficult social issues, such as how to police pornography on the net.
(I am not proposing that we do this, I only list it as an example). 
Suppose that ".sex" is created. Further suppose that ALL 'porn' sites in
the US are *required* to moved from ".com" to ".sex" (I don't want to
get into a political argument here, this is just an example).  This
would provide a simple and effective natural barrier for filtering
content.  Taken to a less extreme example, it provides ways for users to
aggregate to areas that most interest them (ala USENET).

b