I am a member at large and feel I must voice my opinion.
Managing and regulating tld's to maintain a fair, balanced, easy to use, commercially
viable internet system is a complicated process and I don't think anyone will disagree
with that. What I think many will disagree with, myself included, is the view that
the addition of new tld's will smooth out the system and create a better world online
now and in the future.
The stated purposes for new tld's just aren't based in
reality.Enhancing competition for registration services?....There are plenty of
registration services online right now. What needs to be changed and never allowed
to happen again, is the monopoly that Network Solutions has held in the past.
Enhancing the utility of the dns?
What does adding new tld's
really have to do with this?
Enhancing the number of available doman names?
Between
.com, .net, .org. .ws, .web, .cc, .ca, .co.uk, and all the other tld's that total
over 30!!!! the consensus is we need more?
On just one site that brokers available
domain names (Afternic.com) there are over 206,000 available names. That is only
one site! There are many more doman brokerage and auction sites as well as private
individuals, companies, and corporations that have domains available.
There are
thousands of domains available that have been previously registered and for one reason
or another, kicked back into the system.
There are still letter and word combinations
that have never been registered.
We have over 30 tld's worldwide, millons of available
domain names and we need more tld's?...Come on now! Get real.
I'm amazed that
all the businesses that have so much money already invested haven't squashed this
proposal like a bug.
In certain kinds of situations I think
democracy just doesn't work. This being one of them.