Re: [wg-c] Retraction of previous proposal

["Mark C. Langston" <skritch@home.com>]

On 30 July 1999, "Martin B. Schwimmer" <martys@interport.net> wrote:

>3.  The positive value of new TLDs, if they use suffixes which distinguish
>them from other TLDs (in a way in which .firm does not distinguish itself
>from .com), and the registrars adopt best practices such as prepayment and
>verifiable contact data, and the TLD is subject to expedited dispute
>resolution, then those new gTLDs will expand the name space in a way which
>will increase and enhance the ability to use DNs, and increase the ability
>of consumers to rely on brands and trading names in e-commerce, and widen
>the name space to prevent unintentional conflict between commercial and
>non-commercial usages.

You see, this bothers me.  All the people out there (insert sweeping
hand gestures) aren't numbered, passive Revenue Generating Units.
They don't "consume" the net.  They *participate* in the Internet. The
days when commercial interests could point their finger at the
"consumer base" and be accurate about it are gone.

Those you label consumers are now as likely to be providers.  Those of
you who sit back and think of the worldwide Internet population as
a bunch of passive consumers are getting it wrong.  Very wrong.  And
it shows in how you're approaching the namespace issue. 

The namespace isn't *yours*.  It's everyone's.  It belongs to the 
entire world, from the 3-year-old in New Jersey who's banging the
mouse on the coffee table to all the people in the world who don't
even know what the Internet is yet.  And every single one of those
6 billion people have just as much right to use the namespace as
commercial interests.  And a whole lot of them don't give a tinker's
damn about whether or not blimpies.fu resolves to a sandwich chain,
a dirigible manufacturer, a support group, or some guy nicknamed
"Blimpie" in South Wales.

And furthermore, don't assume that the average consumer types in
URLs, either.  I'd wager that most people actually rely on search
engines to find the sites they want, and then they bookmark them.
After that, they use the bookmark file to find the site again.
To them, it doesn't matter what the TLD is.  It doesn't matter what
the SLD is.  It doesn't matter how complicated the URL is.  Because
they'll never type it.  Ever.  If they tell someone about it, they'll
cut and paste it.  So the whole argument about whether a SLD is
"memorable" is pretty much irrelevant.

-- 
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