Quite impressive arguments throughout. I strongly agree
with most of them. I have minor quibbles not worth bothering about and one major
one.I oppose the idea that applying registries have sole say over the composition
of the TLD name (beyond ISO-3166 or single letter concerns). You suggest that we
let the market decide. You also suggest that we let the consumer decide. Those are
not necessarily the same thing. Those who dominate given markets may well be the
non-innovators as you say so well yourself. That often does not best serve the consumer.
The
consumer would be best served by TLDs that mean something more than what a registry
thinks would be marketable. The most likely outcome of such a strategy is that registries
would be picked based on other criteria (as they should be) and we would wind up
with a hodge-podge of TLD 'brands'. This is no better, I would argue it is worse,
than using the TLD characters to signify a likely destination in some reasonably
predictable fashion. Is not a brand just another destination waiting to be defined?
We should make use of existing identifiers that have broad understanding to the consumer.
Your
proposal does not preclude the creation of an .air or .car, but it could (I would
say would, short of monopoly market forces deciding amongst themselves) happen in
a haphazard fashion. Your proposal indeed, does not preclude the creation of an .airline
or .auto co-existing with the above, at least until such time as market forces determine
otherwise. This looks like domain speculation taken to the TLD level, and would at
the very least be confusing to consumers unless and until market forces ruled otherwise.
The only way to lessen this confusion would be through 'branding'. This is not,
or should not, be the concern of the registries. The registries presumably would
primarily exist to map names to numbers for those within a TLD, not to market their
actual TLD name as somehow different or better than another registry. The consumer
is best served by having the names mapped accurately and in some easily understood
fashion, not by name brand competition by various TLDs.
Let them compete on service,
price, efficiency, any number of other market forces, and we will be the better for
it. However, the actual names should not be left to market forces. One need look
no further than what unconstrained market forces have done to the second level domain
space. The names have become commodities, the subject of legislation and lawsuits.
That is no way to manage the DNS.
While market forces do drive much of what we
do, they should not be seen as the defining force on the internet. I submit that
much of the best of the net was not driven primarily by market forces. I strongly
support the concept of the internet as a commons, for both commercial and non-commercial,
government and ngo, market and consumer, (and I could go on) interests. This is a
shared space, the market forces can reasonably be limited in their actions if it
is secondary or contrary to the common interest. I submit that at least the former
applies when it comes to the control of TLD names.
I commend you on openly inviting
apparently direct competition to your own business. That says a lot about the strength
of your convictions. Good luck to you and all the .web'bers out there.