As a registered user of several
.org domains and web host for a number of customers with .org domains I'm apalled
at the idea of recalling this TLD and assigning it only to registered non-profit
corporations. This was never the intent of Jon Postel and other founders of
the Internet as laid out in RFC 1591 and others which established precidents and
protocols for the domain name system.Every computer club and professional organization
to which I belong has a .org domain. None of them are NPOs. The same
is true all over the USA. Revocation of the right to use .org will leave these
organization with nowhere to go, and will cause immeasurable chaos in the internet
communications on which many current legitimate users of .org domains have come to
rely.
A far better approach by ICANN to the legitimate goal of making TLDs actually
mean something would be to revoke the use of .org domains by for-profit corporations,
many of whom are simply squatting on .org domains to protect their SLD from being
used at all. A better idea would also be the creation of .npo or other TLD
specifically for non-profit corps. Taking the step of revoking the use of existing
TLDs for many thousands of organizations currently relying on them would be a monumental
exercise in Bad Judgement and would completely destroy my faith in ICANN as a competent
caretaker of the domain name system.
The whole idea of .org revocation and reassignment
only to NPOs smacks of back-room politics and has the smell of Big Money. Any
for-profit corp which wants a .org domain need only pay the required fees to set
up a non-profit subsidiary and they'll be able to scoop up all the .org domains they
want. Families, social clubs, computer user groups, and others without the
resources required to formally register with their state governments as corporations
will be left out in the cold! This looks like just another step toward making
the Internet safe for Big Business at the expense of the rest of us.
As a good-faith
user of .org domains, and IPP host for others, I am fully prepared to engage in whatever
legal action is necessary to defend my rights and those of my customers to the use
of their .org domains, whether or not they are registered 501c3 corporations or have
any other 'official' status as non-profit corporations.
Lindsay Haisley
FMP
Computer Services