Re: [wg-c] Eureka?

[Milton Mueller <mueller@syr.edu>]

Roeland M.J. Meyer wrote:

> I submit, if we open up the root to thousands of TLDs, with no
> restrictions whatsoever, that we will be lucky to even get ONE
> additional TLD registry out of it, not counting CORE.

I think that's a bit too pessimistic. But even so, if that were the case the
proposal I put forward would receive only one registry application and that
would be that.

> I submit that
> additional TLDs, from NSI, is not what we want. What we want is new TLD
> registries, in competition with NSI.

Yes.

> I would dearly love to see at least
> three new TLD registries, as well as a root registry to manage them.
> Initially, I would restrict each registry to a single TLD, until they
> have met existance proofs of continued business operations (one year of
> profitability, or non-negative cash-flow).

That criterion could very well have shut down NSI after one year.

> This argument, wrt new gTLDs, is somewhat of a red-herring. The direct
> issue is new registries. Only then, do we address the quantity of gTLDs.

I only partly agree. Yes, the process should be driven by registry
applications. But if registries have no idea how many new names will be
added to the ICANN root over a defined period of time, how can they prepare
a business plan? There is some interdependence between the viability of a
registry business and the availability and type of TLD names.

--
m i l t o n   m u e l l e r // m u e l l e r @ s y r . e d u
syracuse university          http://istweb.syr.edu/~mueller/