We must not complicate a simple issue. Why do we have so much difficulty
putting our trust in the open market? The reason that .com represents about
80% of existing TLDs is because the Internet is driven by simple economic profit
motives. Intellectual ingenuity may have created it, but economic hunger
carries it.The Internet is the great equalizer. No nation, group or
person can have inherent advantage, or that equality is lost. It just
does not matter where or why the Web was born. It is bigger than its parts.
The Web engages stunning world-wide economic cooperation, with immense promise for
cultural and political understanding.
The truth is that the Internet will
survive and continue to expand until a better tool is devised, because business innovators
will find a way to make it work no matter what rules or limitations are placed on
them. It may be clumsy, but a way will be found to make it work; and the whole
world will adjust to it, whatever it takes. Cases in point, the expanding
global use of ccTLDs, the uses of prefixes and suffixes on the existing TLDs, and
the growth of imaginative site names that no longer have any intuitive generic meaning.
You can also be sure that if new TLDs are not soon provided, more common business
usage of .net and .org will rapidly spiral, reducing the significance of .com.
It's
not suggested here that private business interests should govern the Web. They
cannot. It would quickly be owned and operated for the wealthy, much
the same as some earlier industries. But collectively, those same business
interests form a world-wide consensus, which polices each other from within.
It works. We raised three children, and whichever one cut the remaining cake
to be divided, he or she was the one having the last choice of the pieces.
Such fairness you have never seen.
Specifically:
1 - a single, tightly regulated,
world-wide central registry is a must to preserve order.
2 - However, allow as
many name registrars as can meet and maintain the high standards for organization,
function, integrity and economic survival. The market will set fair pricing
and conditions.
3 - The predominance of .com is no mystery; it's simply the best
now available. Neither is it magic. If a new TLD such as ".shop", becomes
available, we'll see the same innovative open-market usage applied to it as has been
applied to .com. I suggest that only ".shop" be approved now, and future TLDs
such as ".web" and ".www" be held as possile follow-up releases.
4 - Protection
of intellectual property rights is essential, and I heartily agree with quick and
inexpensive arbitration of disputes, to eliminate the abuse of name registration
that has gone before.
5 - I believe that a simple round-robin entry for any new
TLD registrations, allowing one (1) name submission by each registrar, per each randomly-ordered
circuit of all certified registrars, is a reasonable and fair way to accommodate
the "land rush" which is certain to occur. No advantage can be allowed for
name lists which are compiled in advance, or to size or economic strength or seniority
of a registrar, or to the technically superior speed of a registrar's equipment or
system. A further leveling of the registrants' playing field, would be achieved by
first gathering the name lists from all registrars, then randomly mixing each registrar's
name list before entering the names one (1) at a time, per registrar, as outlined
above. This would eliminate the selling by registrars, of early list positions
to the highest bidders.
The Web is alive and vital, and an opportunity of a lifetime
for us all. We are responsible to not allow selfish interests to manipulate
it, nor bureaucrats or academians to talk it to death. Thank you for hearing
my thoughts.
Respectfully,
Wayne Krut