Comment on proposed auction of single-character names
Good idea! Why not? No-one is using them anyway, and with gas prices the way they are the ICANN community could really use the money. But hang on, why doesn't ICANN auction off *all* gTLD domain names for the good of the community? If we did that, we could get rid of those annoying registries with their high-priced lawyers and expensive contract negotiations, and those spam-offending, UDRP-breaching, $6000-chihuahua-owning registrars to boot. And that would mean fewer constituencies and Board members and captivating MP3 recordings of budget meetings in 12 languages! Now why were one-character domains reserved in the first place?All we know is this: "B. Additional Second-Level Reservations. In addition, the following names shall be reserved at the second level: All single-character labels." (See http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/unsponsored/registry-agmt-appk-03mar01.htm) It actually is a good idea, but any plan to auction one-character names must be accompanied by a rationale of why they were disallowed in the first place, and an explanation of why that reasoning has changed. ICANN has a history, and it should justify its decisions not only in the light of its present circumstances, but its past adjudications as well. Antony Van Couvering |