"Closed Generic" gTLD Applications Comments

[Taylor <jtfairbank@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dearest ICANN,

Many of us view the internet as a 'great equalizer'.  It is a network open
to all, that empowers individuals and corporations to promote their
interests, views, and content.  Granting an entire gTLD to a single
corporation would severely limit access to that gTLD and thus unlevel the
playing field if access is restricted to that gTLD.  In economics, there
are times when a monopoly system makes sense (ie scarce resources,
economies of scale, etc); this is not one of those times.  There is no
inherit scarcity to the new gTLD names, there is nothing to be gained by
the masses with an economy of scale system.  Instead, granting a single
company control of their own gTLD block would give that single corporation
a huge competitive advantage and restrict everyone else from its usage.

At the very least, it is necessary for the owning company to provide equal
and fair access to the gTLD, similar to how many internet registrars today
provide that access to .COM and other TLDs.  Even better would be granting
the rights to register these new gTLDs to a set of companies (instead of
just one), requiring these companies to allow anyone to register an
available domain name within the gTLD, and requiring the company to use the
same registration system that everyone else uses.

Cheers,
Taylor

P.S. Hope you have a great day! :)