Dear ICANN,The recent proposals for new top level domains
are rather interesting in terms of how most the applicants want to perpetuate the
mess that is WWW. In my opinion, the proposals can be sorted into three groups. First,
those that are analogous to .com. Second, those who have policies aimed at making
a particular TLD suit a particular purpose like .kids and .xxx. Clearly, these are
trying to address issues that have arisen during the growth of the Internet. Third,
those TLDs that have policies to reduce the current problems on the WW such as the
.biz application of Affinity Internet. With regards to this latter application,
I am left wondering, "How many of the registered .com names are actually in use?"
For a business, does anyone consider trademarks when these things are assigned?
Why not? The answer is that nobody wants to shut the door on anyone who wants
a URL. I agree. However, I believe that if someone is using the internet
to make money then they should be prepared to pay for it. If the cost is prohibitive
to individuals but acceptable to business then that's fine provided that they are
using the internet to make money.
Only one proposal I've seen really strikes
me as trying to do something different. They
want $2000 for a URL and $150
per year. The only reason to pay that much is that you can make money from
it. How many URLs are for sale by squatters? Your attempts to crack down
on squatting are to be commended but I can't help but wonder how tedious it is.
If you want to make the web a bit more organized it would not hurt to make it more
specialized, in other words, why not let the TLD mean something?
I don't understand
the rational in issuing new TLDs if you have no intention of trying to
differentiate
them. While I'm sure that you can tell me the difference between .COM, .WEB
and .NET I'm quite sure that I'll never figure it out by just looking at the webpages
with those TLDs. If it costs $25 to register a personal webpage or $25 to register
a business webpage then what really is the difference? What criteria can you
use to determine which is which? How can you tell if I'm in business or not.
How can you be sure?
If a company is serious about web business then they should
not mind paying $2000 for a URL. If they are not serious about business on
the web then they can take a .NET or .COM address and if the business grows then
they can move to a .BIZ address later.
You might ask yourself why I feel
that the .BIZ address will still be available for a
company that does not have
one but has established a business through another TLD. The answer is simple.
The address will be available because nobody is going to pay $2000 to squat on addresses.
That's the whole point. Of course, squatting can also be prevented in other
ways, but demand will be decreased only by increasing costs.
Incidentally, if you
think that $2000 is prohibitive for a URL to set up business on the
web then
you should consider how prohibitively expensive it is to apply (with no guarantees
or refunds) for a TLD! Clearly, by these arguments, you should have received
no applications. You could argue that you don't have time to sift through all kinds
of proposals to tell the good from the wasteful but in truth you are using money
to separate those who are serious and dedicated from those who are not. If
you apply this logic to TLD selection then why not apply it to URL selection?
thoughtfully,
Victor
Lonmo