Re: each domain name must have a web page? (was Re: Why we care

[Mark Henderson-Thynne <markht@easynet.co.uk>]

At 22:43 05/10/98 -0700, William X. Walsh wrote:
>Hmm, sounds like Real Estate Speculation.  Is that going to be banned by
policy
>also?  Someone is always going to want that nice corner lot, make a great
spot
>for some commercial project they have, but someone else has it. They
bought it
>because a couple years ago, they realized someone else might be willing to
pay
>more for it on down the line.
>
>There should be NO blanket policy like this covering all TLDs.

I think this sums up one of the best points of introducing competition into
the gTLD market:

If you leave the policy setting to the registries then competing registries
can set policies they feel will be attractive to domain registrants in order
to gain market share.

For example, the .www or .web registries could have a policy requiring
a web site associated with the domain if they felt the benefits of 
this policy with regards to warehousers etc outweighed the costs of
policing this policy. The .biz registry may choose to have a dispute
policy that they felt was better than the policy associated with .com
if they felt the benefits of the policy outweighed the drawbacks.  The
.air registry might only allow airlines to register etc.

In this scenario, registries compete in an open market on price, policy
and service level to the registrars, and companies wishing to be 
registrars can then sign up as registrars of the registries whose 
domains they wish to register under and compete in an open 
market with other registrars again on price, policy and service. The
big winner is the consumer who gets choice both in what the
registrars offer but also in the policies offered by the registries.
The consumer also avoids having one set of policies dictated
to him across all gTLDs.

Regards,

Mark......

(in a personal capacity etc)

P.S. Came across a great quote yesterday which sums up this
whole process really well:

"If you want truly to understand something, try to change it"
- Kurt Lewin (1890-1947)