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The smooth functioning of the Internet is based upon the clear establishment of a
'property right' concept for domains. Once someone has purchased a domain, they have
been and should be able to keep it unless it is a violation of trademarks, copyrights,
etc. If we abandon this functional and fair system, who's to say what will happen
in the future? Perhaps ICANN will decide that .net should be for networking and related
companies only, and reclaim all of the .net addresses that don't match up, or perhaps
families using the .com TLD will lose their domain names...it is a slippery slope.
Further, I am opposed to any sort of restriction on who can register under a certain
TLD unless the system is changed so that it is much easier for folks to start up
a new TLD. Otherwise, the system becomes subject to the arbitrary decisions of an
unaccountable group. For all the negative effects of 'squatting', the court systems
combined with domain name auctions have made it possible to get the domain that you
want if (1) it should really belong to you, or (2) you are willing to pay for it. These
sorts of commercial transactions around domain names are the only way to keep the
system transparent and grounded, and to ensure that the Internet economy will not
be held back by someone's arbitrary decisions about who 'deserves' a particular name.
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