ICANN Email Archives: [coop-renewal-2007]

["Eric Menhart - CyberLaw" <eric.menhart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ICANN Board of Directors:

I call into question the renewal of the .coop TLD. All of the other
top-level domains are, on their face, indicative of the type of site a
surfer would likely find by visiting that top-level domain. Most of the
other TLDs succeed on this point. For example, one might expect to find a
business at a .biz web site, an employment related site at .jobs, and a
professional services website at .pro. 

In my opinion, .coop suffers from ambiguity in this regard. While one could
imagine that a .coop site might be an apartment building or a network of
non-profit sites, it could just as easily be a cooperation of adult
websites, a political organization site, or a for-profit business
cooperative.

There are other TLDs that are more obvious on their face, which would be of
greater help in facilitating Internet navigation. The recently rejected .xxx
domain, which would help to facilitate classification of adult sites, is one
such example.

While not immediately at issue, I would also submit that the .cat TLD
suffers from similar problems. A surfer may not know if she is visiting a
website about housecats, categories of a library, or a catalogued shopping
site. 

Facilitating the "obviousness" of information is a worthwhile goal. The TLDs
.coop and .cat do not succeed in making their likely content obvious to
viewers. For this reason, I would object to the proposed renewal .coop
sponsored TLD agreement.

Best Regards,

Eric Menhart, Esq.
CyberLaw: The Technology Law Firm
401 E. Jefferson Street
Suite 201
Rockville, MD 20850 
http://www.cyberlawonline.com