I look after a surname.org domain registered for a family. It was registered
in .org because the family is scattered around the world and wanted a long-lived
name independent of individual members' current or future ISPs.Our use is not
for profit, and is within the spirit of RFC1591, and Network Solutions happily took
our money. Our web site is open to use by anyone else with the same name and,
through it, parts of the family who didn't previously know they were related have
found each other: this only happened because we registered under .org. The
family is not registered in the US as a not-for-profit organisation (most family
members don't even live in the US, and our web site isn't based there).
There are
very many similar families with .org names: if the effect of the ICANN proposals
is to kick them all out of .org (or to make them spend a lot of money to stay), then
I strongly oppose this.
I note that GNR's proposals for the new ".name" TLD make
no provision for families as opposed to individuals (unless each family member is
prepared to invest in his/her own individual domain registration and email forwarding,
which would be prohibitively expensive - and that still doesn't provide for a central
web site for the family).
So where else are such families supposed to go?
And who is going to pay their migration costs?
If ICANN and related bodies had
shown some foresight, 2nd level domains such as ".family.org", ".software.org", and
so on could have been created *before* the general public were encouraged to register
domain names and line the pockets of Network Solutions, et al. It is, of course,
far too late for that now, but that doesn't justify stripping existing owners of
the domain names they purchased legitimately.