[ga] Re: [ PRIVACY Forum ] It's Time to Stop ICANN's Top-Level Domain (TLD) Lunacy!

["Jeffrey A. Williams" <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lauren and all,

  I don't know if there is cause for alarm here other than
ICANN is charging far too much for a 'ÍCANN Approved TLD'.
So far most of the sTLD 'specilized TLD' have not faired so well
financially and will fade away by market forces in some manner.
But I do have to agree with you that 500 or 1000 new TLD's a year 
is lunacy or very close to it.


-----Original Message-----
>From: privacy@xxxxxxxxxx
>Sent: Nov 3, 2010 6:34 PM
>To: privacy-list@xxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [ PRIVACY Forum ] It's Time to Stop ICANN's Top-Level Domain (TLD)    
>Lunacy!
>
>
>
>
>          It's Time to Stop ICANN's Top-Level Domain (TLD) Lunacy!
>
>               http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000776.html
>
>
>Greetings.  I'm going to keep this relatively short and sweet, since
>I've written of my concerns about ICANN's handling of Top-Level
>Domains (TLDs) many times in the past.
>
>The existing Domain Name System (DNS) has been leveraged in multiple
>ways into something akin to a protection racket, with vast sums of
>money being funneled to existing and wannabe registries, registrars --
>and to ICANN itself -- with little or no resulting tangible benefits
>to the Internet community at large.  That is, unless you consider ever
>increasing levels of costs and confusion to be some sort of benefits.
>Dot-com is still the single TLD that most Internet users recognize as
>fundamental among the increasingly disruptive clutter -- and you
>haven't seen anything yet compared with the pandemonium about to be
>unleashed.
>
>"Protective registrations" by trademark owners and other concerned
>parties in new TLDs have become an enormous profit center for various
>players in the DNS ecosystem, with boasting about the income that will
>be derived through such arm-twisting techniques now being commonplace.
>
>The amount of money involved is staggering.  In a few days, ICANN may
>release their new "guidebook" for upcoming TLD applicants 
>( http://bit.ly/9BZUNu [ars technica] ).  The application fee alone for
>a single new TLD is reported to be almost $200K, payable to ICANN.
>The cost of running a new TLD if you're accepted?  A whole bunch,
>likely including (but not limited to) big moola to ICANN every year.
>
>ICANN plans to limit the number of new TLDs to only (only???) about
>1000 per year -- maybe half that in the first year.  Let's see,
>$185,000 times 1000 ... Nice chunk of change.
>
>Of course, ICANN claims that these fees are justified by the costs
>involved in processing these applications.  Assuming this is true, I
>can't think of a better proof that the entire process is rotten and
>dysfunctional to the core.
>
>The DNS and the domain name infrastructure made sense in an era before
>the universal availability of search engines and online directories.
>But for such massive costs and complexities -- such as those
>inevitably stemming from the ICANN TLD expansion -- to be incurred
>simply to map names to Internet sites is now both technically and
>economically obsolete and abominable.
>
>It's time to end the TLD madness.  It will take both time and some
>heavy lifting.  But there are alternative methodologies -- more
>efficient, extensible, and far more economical, much better suited to
>the Internet of the 21st century, and we need to start working on them
>now.
>
>Vested interests -- basically the entire "domain-industrial 
>complex" -- who stand to profit mightily by exploiting the continuation 
>and expansion of the unnecessary, counterproductive, and obsolete domain
>name system, can be expected to fight any efforts at significant
>changes, using every weapon in their arsenals.  Various other parties
>will also fight such changes -- since as we've increasingly seen the
>DNS provides an ideal mechanism for centralized censorship and
>heavy-handed intellectual property enforcement regimes -- through the
>disabling on demand of Web site name-based addressability.
>
>Be that all as it may, this is a battle -- nay, perhaps a war --
>necessary for the best interests of both the Internet and its global
>community of users.
>
>Please let me know if you'd be interested in participating.
>
>Thanks.  Take care.
>
>--Lauren--
>Lauren Weinstein (lauren@xxxxxxxxxx)
>http://www.vortex.com/lauren
>Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
>Co-Founder, PFIR (People For Internet Responsibility): http://www.pfir.org
>Founder, NNSquad (Network Neutrality Squad): http://www.nnsquad.org
>Founder, GCTIP (Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance): 
>   http://www.gctip.org
>Founder, PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
>Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
>Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
>Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
>Google Buzz: http://bit.ly/lauren-buzz
>
>_______________________________________________
>privacy mailing list
>http://lists.vortex.com/mailman/listinfo/privacy

Regards,
Jeffrey A. Williams
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is very
often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

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