comment on cost / benefit analysis, "limited" rollout, and community scoring

[fred krueger <frkrueger@xxxxxx>]

I would like to make three quick comments, in response to discussion on this 
forum.

First, it should be noted that every single TLD entered into the root so far 
has had greater benefits to the community overall than costs.

- .com certainly has far greater benefits to the world internet community than 
costs, despite the fact that almost all defensive registrations and 
cybersquatting occur in .com
- .org has provided organizations and non profits a distinctive identity, with 
very low costs to the community
- .info and .biz have together provided 7 million registrants an alternative to 
.com, where the preferred name might not have been available
- .cat has provided a home for catalan speaking communities with absolutely 
negligible costs to other communities
- .mobi and .tel have clear, specialized uses, with again very few UDRPs or 
defensive registrations
- even though .coop, .aero, .name, and .travel have not had widespread 
adoption, they have also caused very little harm
- .country codes have provided a clear national and linguistic identity for 
registrants, far surpassing .com in most cases

What is good in the particular is good in the aggregate. The only reason that 
this point is being debated is that the benefits in general occur to 
registrants, registries, registrars, and the overall internet community, while 
the costs are concentrated primarily on large brands. However with URS, the 
clearinghouse, and self-imposed GPML lists such as in the .co sunrise,  it is 
highly unlikely that these large brands will suffer material costs as the 
rollout occurs. If they do, the RPM's can and will certainly be modified over 
the next few years.


My second comment concerns calls for a "limited rollout" of "safe" TLDs. I echo 
the comments of others here in saying that there is no simple or desirable way 
of doing this. This is NOT the process that we have been following over the 
last three years, and will not provide any clear "information" of any kind. To 
state the obvious, we have already done this -- twice -- in the previous two 
gTLD rounds. To go back to that model would be essentially to throw away the 
last three years of work, with no basis whatsoever.

My third comment is for the board to refuse any pleas from self interested 
candidates to modify the community scoring at the last minute. I am confident 
this will not happen, but we need to close this particular chapter now.