Three years ago
New.net made the clear decision to introduce specific consumer-oriented domain
extensions and purposely avoided extensions that would cause a conflict in the
DNS and serviced the need for more specific website addresses.
New.net have
built up their business with support of multiple ICANN accredited registrars,
webmasters, companies and netizens and currently provide access to their domain
extensions to nigh on 175m users. If a .travel TLD was to be introduced by
ICANN and operated by an industry led group there will clearly be a DNS
collision with all the sites developed by New.netters already providing travel
content in competition with the big boys.
The numerous
companies and individuals who bought .travel, and indeed .xxx, domains from
New.net and have developed them into revenue generating sites should not be
ignored. The Tralliance proposal certainly appears very protective with a ream
of conditions and exclusions for registrants to satisfy which may not be as
easy for a one-man-band start-up versus Opodo or Orbitz. As others in this
forum have said, with all the proposed restrictions, who will decide on who get
what domain – someone who has the most muscle in the alliance?
I believe that
if ICANN introduces the .travel TLD, all existing New.net .travel domains
should be grandfathered over. Alternatively, reject Tralliance’s proposal
and invite New.net to operate a registry for the .travel TLD.
Dave Mitchell
MitchNet
Webmaster &
Mobile Solutions