Re: [wg-c] A counterproposal

[dwmaher@ibm.net]

At 11:36 PM 7/16/99 -0700, Kent Crispin wrote:
[clip]
>While I am perfectly content to propose 50 or 60, I don't think you 
>will convince the TM people that you understand their well-being 
>better than they do, and, as a practical political reality, I think 
>we are forced to keep the initial set small.  That's why I proposed 
>a small set of 6 to begin with -- I simply don't think many more 
>will be acceptable.  Perhaps one of the TM people could speak to 
>this issue?
From at least September, 1995, TM groups have almost universally opposed
the introduction of a number of new gTLDs as high as 50 or 60. The IAHC
proposal of 7 in lieu of Jon Postel's proposal of a much larger number was
partly a recognition that this would be more acceptable to TM owners.
Personally, I always thought that the existence of the so-called "open
ccTLDs", numbering in the 50-100 range, made this a somewhat irrelevant
issue from a trademark standpoint. I always thought a better reason to
start with a small set was the technical issue of making sure that the new
registry system would work properly.
David Maher