Re Draft Applicant Guidebook V2

["Ron Jackson" <ron@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ICANN's ill-advised plan to flood the Internet with an endless wave of
unwanted and unnecessary new gTLDs will bring nothing but clutter, chaos and
confusion to a domain name system that was created with a well defined
organizational structure in place. That carefully thought out structure that
has served Internet users well will be destroyed by the ICANN plan if it is
allowed to go forward, causing irreversible harm to all Internet users and
the thousands of businesses around the globe that will have to pay the price
for ICANN's folly. They will be required to waste money on defensive
registrations in useless extensions and in some cases even the registry
operation costs of unwanted TLDs simply  to protect their trademark rights. 

 

I was hesitant to spend time leaving a comment on this matter as ICANN has a
long history of ignoring the publicly stated wishes of the Internet
community and doing what is in ICANN's best interests, even in the face of
overwhelming public opposition. However I felt that it is important that
objections be placed in the public record so that this consistent pattern of
ignoring community sentiment is well documented.

 

Since ICANN stands to benefit financially by acting against the common good
with this new gTLD plan I believe it will be necessary for the U.S.
government to step in and save the current stable structure of the DNS that
the world depends from ruin,  before ICANN creates a disaster that cannot be
undone. Ironically, as presaged by the International Olympic Committee's
warning  to ICANN that it will be held responsible for damages caused the
IOC by this program - ICANN itself may well be among the victims of its own
plan, despite the initial windfall they hope to reap from  6-figure new TLD
application fees. Other than ICANN, who is the beneficiary of the massive
costs of rolling out an unlimited number of new extensions? 

 

Other points that I would make have already been eloquently made by others
in this thread and I am in particular agreement with what George Kirikos
wrote in his letter dated April 9 citing observations that World Wide Web
creator Tim Berners-Lee made in 2004 that are still fully relevant today:
http://forum.icann.org/lists/2gtld-guide/msg00020.html. I am hopeful that in
the end common sense will prevail and this poorly conceived plan will be
shelved once and for all.

 

Ron Jackson

Tampa, Florida