[wg-c-1] Wecome to Drafting Committee 1

[Javier SOLA <jsola@aui.es>]

Folks,

Welcome to dfrafting committee 1 of WG C.

I would like to start this committee with a little background information
that I have received from David Maher. I have added a couple of comments.
This is is basically what we have:

Background: 

In August, 1996, Jon Postel, director of the Internet Assigned Number
Authority (IANA) suggested the creation of as many as 150 new generic Top
Level Domains to be introduced over a period of five years. 

In February, 1997, after a lot of public consultation, the International Ad
Hoc Committee (IAHC, created by IANA and ISOC) recommended the introduction
of seven new gTLDs as a first step towards the eventual opening of the gTLD
space to larger numbers. IAHC recommended the following:

	.firm	for businesses, or firms
        .store     for businesses offering goods to purchase
         .web	for entities emphasizing activities relating to the World
Wide Web
         .arts	for entities emphasizing cultural and entertainment activities
         .rec	for entities emphasizing recreation/entertainment activities
         .info	for entities providing information services
         .nom	for those wishing individual or personal nomenclature  

The descriptions of each gTLD were intended to be guides for use and were
not necessarily mandatory, although this possibility was left open.

Some have proposed the inclusion of a domain related to sex, either ".xxx"
or  ".sex"

Of course, the deliberations of DC 1 are not confined to any earlier
proposals, including the one outlined above. Any information about other
past or present proposals is most welcome.

Nevertheless, the fact is that this and other proposals have received
wide-spread publicity. This publicity led many users of the Internet to
expect that one or more proposals would be implemented at some point in
time, that is, that new gTLDs would be added to the root.

Given this background, DC 1 should address the following questions:

1. Should there be new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs)? 
		a) If yes: How many?
		b) What should the new gTLDs, if any, be?

2. If there are to be new gTLDs, how should they be deployed? Should they
be introduced all at one time, one at a time, or in groups, and over what
time period. In what order should they be introduced?

3. Assuming that a limited number of new gTLDs is to be deployed over a
period of time in the near future, what should be the mechanism for
developing new gTLDs after the first new gTLDs are deployed.

4. If there are to be new gTLDs, should each one, or certain ones, have a
specific charter? In other words, should some gTLDs be limited to use by
certain entities, and if so should the limitation be mandatory?  If the
limitation is to be mandatory, what should be the enforcement mechanism and
who should be the enforcement body? 

Please understand that we are always talking about new gTLDs, not the
existing ones.

I propose that we start with questions 1 and 2.

Javier Sola