[comments-gtlds] Re: [wg-c] WGC Position Paper

["Sutherland Ewan (SDE)" <ewan@INTUG.NET>]

The general trend of the discussion in WG-C is to take rapid steps towards
the introduction of a fairly large name space, with the possibility that
some will succeed and others fail. I am quite happy with this. No reason
seems to have been advanced to restrict the number of new TLDs (after an
initial test perido), other than confusion and failure of the registries. 

I think the gTLD name space should be open for an organisation to propose
being the sole registrar for a TLD if they believe it makes business sense.
For example, it might be that .LUXURY is a good idea for especially
expensive and select items. The organisation could limit who registers and
those who do might be requried to meet certain objectives. It would be open
to companies to register or not. Such a grouping need not be profit-based.
The obvious restriction on this would be on an especially sought after name
and this would suggest a public period in which reasonable objections could
be made.

I initially assumed .mus would be for music. This raises the question of
cultural and linguistic specificity. People should check that the TLD does
mean something vile or silly in other languages.

I think there should be a very serious consideration of conflict with
country names. Ambiguity or problems might well arise here. If say a bunch
of companies selling cups, saucers and porcelain wanted a domain .CHINA,
then I think trouble could result.

I presume the intellectual property rights and trade mark people would get
upset if a TLD appeared to be a brand name. 

Which takes us to the interesting territory of, say, that famous
Atlanta-based corporation wanting .COKE as a TLD. I can see no obvious
reason why a number of large corporations would not want to do this.
(Perhaps I should register .ewan for all the people with the same personal
name.)

Ewan


Ewan Sutherland
INTUG - the International Telecommunications Users Group
ewan@intug.net     http://www.intug.net/      
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