I support the "powers that be" making at least some attempt to get people to use
the top level domains in some semblance of their intended purpose, interpreted in
a lenient way to encompass the wide range of uses of the net. But I'd want
to see it applied to all the top level domains, especially the most heavily abused
one, .com. If anybody is going to get evicted from .org for not being "nonprofit"
(however that gets defined), they should also kick out noncommercial entities from
.com, especially government agencies (e.g., "goarmy.com"). That sort of usage
really "dumbs down" the domain system, and causes the public to lose all understanding
of what the endings mean.I'd rather this be done as a shift in attitude to encourage
people to at least think about the proper usages before registering domains, than
as a punitive thing where people's good-faith-registered domains are yanked after
the fact because somebody thinks it's retroactively incorrect. (Of course,
given its history, I don't particularly trust ICANN to do anything in a reasonable,
non-punitive way.)
In my view, the best approach would be to require registrars
to include somewhere on their registration form a brief summary of the intended purpose
of each top level domain they register, and a clause where the applicant certifies
that his/her/their intended use of the domain fits within this purpose. This
wouldn't necessarily be enforced after the fact, but the dispute resolution rules
could also be changed to suggest that the panels take into account the properness
of the domain in dispute with regard to the nature of the complainant and respondent's
organizational types and Internet uses. (E.g., a commercial company challenging
a noncommercial user over an allegedly infringing domain would lose weight to its
case if the domain being challenged ended in ".org", but would gain weight if it
ended in ".com", or the other way around if it were a noncommercial organization
challenging a commercial company.)
I'd also want to see the required language in
the registration agreement make some mention of the use of subdomains, and suggest
that if your intended use is for a chapter or subsidiary of something that already
has a domain you should preferably use a subdomain instead of registering another
Stupid Unnecessary Domain Name (tm), but that'll never happen.