I came to the conclusion
that we are discussing the wrong problem. New gTLD will not help decreasing the
pressure on .com - to the contrary, it will only make it more valuable and searched
for. There is plenty of room left with .net and .org and several ccTLDs are used
for specific purposes like .tv but the demand is not important.
The problem are
the net addressing chaos and trade marks.
Marks can only be solved through "additional
property" : since you cannont register a mark+TLD as a trade mark, you must register
a TLD together whith a mark for it to be protected under that TLD.
Chaos comes
from two pleas: the cybersquatters and the national authorities too drastic rules
for national domain name allocations. Think about the dramatic impact on all our
problems of an inability to transfer domain names. You should cancel them first,
unless the new owner is an affiliate of the former owner. Like some countries do.
End of cybersquatting.
Today we cannot do this, but we can:
- work out
patches : new gTLDs, rules, etc... i.e. what we plan
- work on a new more
reasonable approach. The ".sys" gTLD solution I propose is an example.
Commercial
network, lines of product, services are trying to build public recognition on semantic
logics. If I have devised a new publishing concept named "abc" I will use it for
"abc flowers", "abc cars", "abc homes", etc... If I head the XYZ company I will have
XYZ USA, XYZ UK, XYZ France, XYZ Japan, etc... If I develop a control network for
the New York traffic lights I will want DNs built as NYtrafficlight-01000, etc...
But today if I register "abc-flowers.com" and "abc-cars.com" a cybersquatter will
register "abc-homes" for $15 and try to sell it back to me for millions. This means
that we do not realy need 1st level additions, but semantic at the 2nd level.
Let
assume we open the ".sys" gTLD in the same way as ".arpa" was opened. Cool. No money
push/conflict/problem/discount because managed as a non profit organisation under
ICANN control. No rush because it would only be allocated on a format basis, i.e.
you could register "abc***.sys" only if you already have registered 100 "abc---.tld"
domain names anywhere in the world, and you would have been the first in doing so
(potential occasional conflicts between formats being ruled the same way).
-
cyberquatters would have to buy and obtain 100 DNs before you!
- peole with
a new idea would only need to invest $ 1500 to protect their concept
- large
companies would have their name protected at zero cost in helping giving ".sys" a
large organization image. Who care if someone owned "xerox.com" if everyone thinks
"large internet system = .sys, i.e. xerox.sys".
BTW, what is the easiest to promote
and to remember?
- http://sales.france.ibm.com and http://sales.uk.ibm.com
-
http://sales.ibm-france.com, http://sales.ibm-uk.com
Anyway with the rule of the
100 DNs, both formula would cohexist to the benefit of the users.
VPN could be
planned without fear and get their logic. The NY Traffic Light control program of
the 2100s could be launched today without fearing cybersquatting, in registering
'NYTLS'-999999.sys with 9 standing for a numeric.
Cost of the format would be
related to the number and the position of the reserved digits and may be to the size
of the owner to help start up and non profit to develop. This would be easy if managed
as a non profit club. This would also help developping virtual systems for joint
project, universities, e-commerce, franchises, etc. to the advantage of the public
and of the network development.
Comments welcome. I would be creating
a working group to dig into this and to formaly propose to set it up.