Re: Suggestions (Re: [wg-c] Schwimmer Post From Last Week )

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

On 21 December 1999, "Roeland M.J. Meyer" <rmeyer@mhsc.com> wrote:


>
>> While I still think the idea of chartered TLDs is a viable
>> one, I'd like
>> to make one suggestion:  For those groups that have specific TLDs
>> allocated for them, they may not cross-register their SLD in another
>> TLD.
>
>I think that this should be up to the TLD registry. Market forces will sort
>out the best policies here.
>
>I also think that the registrant is better able to market a TLD according to
>their own vision.
>
>Personally, I can market/develop/deploy my own concepts MUCH better than I
>can an imposed concept. Moreover, my own concepts have my personal buy-in. I
>would wager that this is generally true, for most folks.
>
>A TLD must be developed as part of a market development process or it just
>doesn't work. The reason CNO worked is because the definition is wide-open
>and NSI could do anything they wanted with a general charter and the fact
>that there was no alternative.

Domain names are not the sole purview of commercial interests.  Until
that's reflected in policy, many people will continue to be upset.


>
>Most marketers would roll on the floor laughing at the thought that a
>handful of technical weenies would even attempt to define their markets for
>them. Then they would simply walk away. If they did do it, there wouldn't be
>enough buy-in, by the marketers, for them to do a decent job. If you've ever
>seen those guys in action then you know what I'm talking about. If you
>haven't, then you haven't a clue. Jazz, Buzz, whatever ... it ain't there
>when it's somebody else' schtick. This is one place where practice overcomes
>theory.
>
>
Let them walk away.  Are they going to revert to using raw IPs?  I
have no trouble doing so;  they might.

I don't see why the suggestion that commercial interests refrain from
registering their domain names in TLDs other than those allocated
specifically for their purposes would upset anyone.  Heck, the major
argument right now is one of "customer confusion".  If the customer
knows there's an entire TLD (e.g., .com) where one may find commercial
domains, the confusion disappears.  There's no confusion over whether
accredited institutions of higher learning are in .org or .com (let's
not bring up U. of Phoenix; they're an outlier and anomalous).  When I
go to a .edu domain, I'm pretty sure I'm getting what I'm looking for.

The entire "let's register our company in every single TLD and have them
all point to our e-commerce site" thing is getting close to the practice
of wanting to tag every flat surface one finds with grafitti.  We need
to come up with a DNS equivalent of "Post No Bills" before we march ahead
and create 6-10 new .com spaces.

I'm all for expanding the namespace, but if the end result would be
equivalent to just doing a zone transfer on .com and relabelling the TLD,
count me out.  There's no point then.  It buys the end-user nothing, it
costs the TM and IP folks more to police, it costs the companies more
for registration and maintenance.

When we expand the namespace (and it WILL happen, eventually.  There
is NO stopping this, only delaying), the only workable solution is one
in which everyone (or at least the majority) benefits.  Current
practices would indicate the following would happen if we create 6-10
new, non-chartered, free-for-all TLDs:

1)  Every person who knows about it beforehand will be hunting up
    registration scripts, and will make a huge land-grab as soon as
    the new TLDs go live,

2)  Mark holders will do the same, in every domain, essentially duplicating
    .com, and making up for slip-ups and oversights they committed in
    .com originally,

3)  TM and IP interests will complain that their policing costs just
    increased n-fold,

4)  The entire concept of a TLD will be that much further diluted --
    as long as people spend time, money, and effort registering the same
    SLDs in every TLD they can, the point of the TLD becomes meaningless.
    The TLD should be a further unique label.  If we create a world in
    which porsche.* exists (and we're rapidly approaching that precipice,
    folks), then we may as well abolish the entire concept of TLDs, and
    just use SLDs as TLDs.  Since so many here are concerned with 
    "consumer confusion", just think what it means to them when they can
    ascertain no difference whatsoever among TLDs.

5)  Anyone wishing to purchase a domain name will be faced with exactly
    the same situation they are currently faced with:  a severely depleted
    namespace.  We're currently witnessing a rush to take advantage of
    the "new" label length.  I've seen domains as recently as yesterday
    that were just dictionary words with singly- or multiply-repeated
    vowels.  There's a huge rush to register these, according to some
    sources, and that's just from an announcement that there's a "new"
    doman name length limit.  Extending this behavior into a future
    where we announce the existence of new free-for-all TLDs isn't
    unreasonable.  

The CNO has grown gradually over the years;  where we now stand, there
are hundreds and thousands of people scooping up any label they can,
for various reasons.  However, the namespace was pretty much depleted
when they got there.  It's foolish to think that these people won't be
crushing people against the gates to buy up every single name they
can generate when the new TLDs are launched.  If we don't have some
controls in place, you're going to see a spate of lawsuits unlike any
ever before witnessed.  The TM and IP interests would like those controls
to be pre-emptive exclusion of their marks;  I happen to think that
a reasoned set of tightly-controlled chartered TLDs would be a better
solution.

I also believe that any "free-for-all" TLD can go ahead and be written 
off, because it will either be full of .com duplicates owned by the
mark owners, or full of .com duplicates owned by bad-faith "squatters".
Too many people are too high from the fumes of DNS cash to make me
believe any other way.

-- 
Mark C. Langston
mark@bitshift.org
Systems Admin
San Jose, CA