Re: [ga] Ask Vint Cerf: The Road Ahead for Top-Level Domains
create the tlds. I'm also open to the need for a tld owner to have to put up a bond or purchase insurance to cover some plan by ICANN or another body to take over tld management if necessary due to failed business plans. Would you be willing to say that every business, every enterprise, every school, every church, in fact every person, would have to equally post some sort of bond guaranting their sucess? Clearly you wouldn't. So, why are TLDs any different? You can even start an airline or a food service without having to prove that you won't go out of business - all you have to prove is that you know how to (and do) follow the appropriate safety procedures. Hey, even the top of ICANN's pyramid of contracts - ICANN itself - has never created a bond or other guarantee that it won't simply go out of business and let the pyramid of domain name registration contracts crumble. understand the arguments against such a failsafe plan, but think no proposal without such assurances will pass the muster
As soon as we admit even one non-technical criteria then everybody else's hobbyhorse can come in the door. And the first to march through, with the band playing, will be the intellectual property industry. So the answer is this - if you want to impose business longevity guarantees, do it through the appropriate mechanism: a legislative enactment passed by a national legislature and signed by a national executive. But don't do it under the guise of "technical stability". Contractors, plumbers and others have to be bonded and insured. No, they don't, people are not required to hire bonded or union plumbers, contractors, etc. Only a very few professions (such as medicine or law) have legal requirements. And speaking as a member of one of those professions, I can tell you that I don't have to post any sort of bond guranting my business continuity to my clients. --karl--
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