[comments-gtlds] My take on IOD

["Ronald Hayden" <rhayden@ananzi.co.za>]

Greetings,

As I've followed this discussion group I cannot help but notice that nearly all if not all the persons who support IOD have registered a .web through them. Of course! They don't want to lose the money they spent. But this makes them impartial and biased when it comes to the real issue.

It is my personal opinion that IOD is one of the biggest frauds online. They have made thousands of dollars (maybe Chris Ambler would like to give us the exact figures?) by selling people domains that they can't guarantee. Anybody who takes a look at the webtld.com site can tell you that the way everything is presented makes it look like registering with them is a sure thing. Tell me how this is not fraudulent. At least all of the CORE registrars accepting pre-registrations that I have been to have made it explicitly clear that there is NO GUARANTEE that the pre-registrations are valid. Of course it's too late for IOD to do that now that they've taken people's money.

As one other poster mentioned, a search of the registration database at webtld.com shows that a small number of people have already pre-registered all the valuable generic domains. You can also see that trademarked names such as tacobell.web and pepsi.web have been registered by people OTHER than the companies themselves. Obviously both of these attest to the point that IOD's .web system does not solve the problems that we are aiming to solve with the addition of new gTLDs. Why create a .web namespace when there will be little room left after all the pre-registrations are added to the root server?

The best solution is to have a shared registry system operating just as we have now for .com, .net, and .org. I propose that current ICANN registrars be given the right to register the new domains and that the registrations all start at the same time to ensure fairness. If IOD wishes to participate they surely have the money and resources to apply for ICANN accreditation.

Thank you.

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