Re: [wg-c] Comments?

["Keith Gymer" <keith.gymer@btinternet.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Craig Simon <cls@flywheel.com> wrote

> The point is that the cure shouldn't be worse than the diesease.

Agreed!

> I made a very specific suggestion in the early days of this list about
> starting with .web. That proposal is at
> http://www.flywheel.com/ircw/wgc1plan.html. (I think the version in the
> wgc-1 archives has fewer typos.)
>
> Since that idea was so (un)popular, these days my thinking is going in a
> very different direction-- .1000, .2000, .1010, .2010, .2020, etc. I'm
> only guessing that it's legal (in a technical sense) to start a TLD with
> a number.

> I'm not a big fan of the idea of restricted TLDs. How do you pick out
> who's in charge, and what deserves to be an rTLD? It seems to me like a
> big can of worms. I don't think gTLDs really need a taxonomy, just more
> suffixes that people don't have to get forced into using longer and
> longer, more convulated SLD names as the existing TLDs saturate.

The principal reason for conflicts over names in existing gTLDs (in my view)
is the lack of any adequate differentiation and, in the case of .org and
.net, lack of enforcement of the originally intended differentiation.  Where
there is enforcement (eg. .edu .mil .int) the potential for confusion and
conflict is greatly reduced - if you type in a .edu or .int name you can be
confident of the sort of entity you're connecting to.  That is beneficial
both to the domain name owners and their customers/users.

.1000, .2000 etc adds no useful differentiation whatever.  Even if you add
thousands as Milton evidently wants, such gTLDs will add no value whatever
to assist domain name owners and their customers/users.

.web .firm etc (on their own) suffer the same problem (unless perhaps
differentiation is enforced at SLD level and registrations are only at the
third level - e.g. pepsi.drinks.web).

Consider a topical example.  How would clue.web do anything to relieve the
potential for confusion and conflict (and the land grab rush of .com owners
to stop anyone else getting the same name under .web)?  It doesn't.
Contrast
clue.computers
clue.games
clue.have_you_got_one ?  ;-)

As to who would be in charge, ultimately I would expect it to be ICANN which
would confirm eligibility criteria in such business-specific TLDs on the
basis of detailed specifications to be determined by the NC, for example.  I
would also anticipate that such business-specific TLDs could be made
self-policing by providing for the possibility of cancellation on challenge
by any third party if the registrant was shown not to meet the relevant
criteria. So, to take  well known UK example, lloyds.bank lloyds.chemist
lloyds.insurance would not get away with trespassing in each other's (g)TLD.

One big advantage of this sort of taxonomy is that it is natural and
familiar to businesses and consumers alike.  If country code TLDs recognise
the potential opportunity then the taxonomy can also be readily adapted to
take account of linguistic and cultural diversity (e.g vauxhall.cars.uk and
renault.voitures.fr), and the need for additional gTLDs might be reduced
considerably to the greater benefit of the ccTLDs themselves.  Another
advantage is that it would lend itself to use with intelligent browsers -
and facilitate searching (removing the present automatic, cultural
imperialism and anti-competitive bias in browsers which presently just fill
in ".com " after a domain is typed in would be a big step forward in my
view!)

I have concentrated on business issues in these comments, but I think a YP
style taxonomy could also very effectively provide differentiation for
non-commercial users with appropriately different eligibility criteria to
take account of their different nature.

Regards

Keith