Re: [wg-c] new TLDs

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Thu, Dec 23, 1999 at 01:25:39PM -0500, Milton Mueller wrote:
[usual petty waspish insults]

> Kent Crispin wrote:
> 
> > The presumption is that some official
> > organization ALREADY CHARGED with regulating international banking
> > would apply to ICANN for a TLD, and they would be the ones delegated
> > the job of enforcing the criteria, because THEY ALREADY HAVE THAT JOB
> > IN ANOTHER ARENA.  They have already proven that they are immune to
> > anti-trust action, by their existence, etc etc.
> 
>The fact that the banking industry has been intersecting with brokerage and
>insurance industry for a decade, that industry boundaries are fluid and that,
>particularly in the international arena, authority is almost always divided and
>contested, doesn't phase him a bit.

That is correct -- I am not fazed one bit, since your point is basically
irrelevant to the proposal at hand.  There is a subtle but important
distinction you are missing: we are not trying to come up with a perfect
definition for the term "bank".  Instead, we are trying to come up with
criteria, policies, and mechanisms for granting SLDs in .banque, and a
perfect definition of the term is not necessary for there to be usable
criteria, policies, and mechanisms.  

For example, it may be the case that Credit Unions meet those criteria,
or it may be the case that they don't.  It simply doesn't matter.  All
that matters is that the criteria be clear, defendable, and fairly
applied.  If Credit Unions are not excluded, then they could get SLDs in
.banque.  If they are excluded, then they could register in .com or
elsewhere, or a national organization of Credit Unions could propose a
different TLD for credit unions, and be the sponsor for that TLD.   
They also would have to come up with a clear, fair set of criteria, and 
a (pardon the pun) creditable organization to serve as a sponsor.

>Hey Kent, who is that organization (singular) "already charged with regulating
>international banking"? It ought to be easy enough to come up with a name, no?

There obviously isn't a single international organization that
"regulates banking", and that isn't what I said (read it carefully). 
There are many entities involved in regulating some aspect of banking or
another, and *any* organization that has as part of its responsibility
would do for our purposes.  Even better would be a consortium of such 
organizations that agreed to be a "sponsor" for .banque.

The fact is that in the general case there are many different kinds of
entities that could be a "sponsor".  The .cpa case is pretty simple --
the AICPA is an obvious choice.  In the case of .bank the question is
more complicated, because there are multiple entities that could serve
the role.  One of them could do the job, or, as I mentioned above, 
perhaps a group of them.

Here are some example TLDs with possible sponsors -- these are 

.ham -- International Amateur Radio Union

.md.us -- American Medical Association 

.museum -- International Council of Museums 

.movie (a TLD dedicated to commercial sites about movies) 
  -- an international non-profit membership organization of movie 
  studios

.anon -- Amnesty International

.voip (a tld for the technical purpose of supporting ip telephony)
  -- an international organization formed by telephone companies

.bank -- as discussed.

Eric's .naa TLD also can be viewed as a sponsored TLD, with tribal 
governing bodies as the sponsors.

> Did you mean IMF? WTO? SWIFT? the SEC? the US Federal Reserve or any one of
> about 200 other central banks? the FDIC? the EC?

The first three and the last, singly or in combination.

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain