Re: [wg-c] new TLDs

[werner@axone.ch (Werner Staub)]

Karl,

> > Your proposal for a .BANK tld is an interesting idea, and one
> > example of literally hundreds of possible applications of new
> > tlds.
> Does this include savings and loans?  Credit unions?  Investment banks?
> The US Federal Reserve?  My stock brokerage offers many bank-like
> services, so I guess they can be a .BANK too.  What about food or blood
> banks? How about SoftBank?  How about a web site on how to bank billiard
> shots?  And we can't forget the man who broke the Bank at Monte Carlo or
> the booksellers on the Left Bank in Paris. Nor should we forget about our
> friend the Piggy Bank.

I am afraid facts are different. The word bank is defined in all
legislations where you would trust a bank. A company is either subject 
to a given nations' banking law and watched by the central bank, or it 
is not. This is about as objective as any criteria can be. There are, 
moreover, established frameworks: SWIFT, the Bank of International 
Settlements, national and international Bankers' associations. And
central banks publish the data on their banks.

Banks themselves have multilateral and bilateral systems for credit 
limit management. The banking industry is full of objective criteria as 
money is easy to quantify. A USD 1 million performance bond requirement 
would do wonders in filtering applicants for a .bank SLD, if that is 
what you need.

So there is no problem at all in defining a chartered TLD here. Agreeing 
on a charter, of course, is either a task of the industry, or one for the 
governments, or for para-governmental industry assocations. 

As the banking industry often demonstrates, the industry heavyweights
are not always interested in organisational progress for the entire 
industry. It is much more fun for a bank to let international wire 
payments hang around and earn interest with delays than to offer, say, 
a click-on-the-URL-to-pay-instantly type of service. Any progress in 
the banking industry depends on identifiers such as chartered domain
names for financial applications.

Just a couple of examples 

1) nationsbank.bank or nationsbank.us.bank could replace the SWIFT 
   code NABKUS3ARIC (OK, they have been bought by Bank of America, 
   but that does not prevent the old SWIFT code from working

2) karlauerbach.conto could be your personal,  bank-independent
   non-english-centric account number. In 2002, you might send out 
   email with the URL pay://USD:123.45:customer77@karlauerbach.conto 
   and allow your client to pay through his bank, and some time 
   later you change your own bank and it still works.

To conclude, chartered TLDs for the banking industry would be 
precisely the monopoly buster you (as defender of individual's
rights, as I understand) should be interested in. SWIFT is one 
of the monopolies. Have a look at their web site (www.swift.com).



Regards,

Werner
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