The existing system includes
over 200 2 letter country code TLDs. While some of these country code TLDs restrict
nameholders to residents or businesses within that specific country, many of them
are 'open'. That is, anyone may register there. Example: YourBusiness.ZZ
or TravelNow.YY
Furthermore, many of these countries are in the lower tier of development
and economic resources. Domain name income, tied to some social mechanism whereby
in-country Internet access, educational benefits, and increased opportunity for underserviced
populations, can help propel these nations/economies toward a higher standard of
living.
The ICANN constituencies, those groups working towards consensus positions
on Internet Governance, are effectively dealing with trademark issues and 'best
practices' for 2 letter country code domain management, such practices to provide
for certain social and community benefits to the in-country population.
New technical
standards under development by ICANN working groups allow for expansion of the name
space by adding multi-lingual character sets (Kanji, Cyrillic, Arabic, etc.) to the
DNS. This means access to hundreds of thousands of new web and e-mail addresses,
in the native languages of most of the world's inhabitants.
One million dollars
of income to, say Indonesia would have a substantial impact on development there.
Another
million to a well-financed corporation in the Name Registry business who happens
to get the rights to a new gTLD would do very little towards raising the evolution
of humanity on our planet.