Re: [ga] Karl's comments at the 2003 Senate hearings on allocation systems

[sotiris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

>
> On Mon, 19 Dec 2005, sotiris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>> How does one measure the "demand for new TLDs"?
>
> Easy, open the door that those who want one can get one.  If nobody
shows
> up, demand is low.  If a lot of people show up then demand is high.
>
> We know for certain that even with a prodgious hurdle of a $50,000
>application fee, plus heavy contractual obligations, that 47 groups
applied >in year 2000.


Karl, I never thought I'd see the day you'd be lobbying on behalf of
potential registry operators and registrars.

Allow me to present certain facts.  Please take a look at:
http://www.whois.sc/internet-statistics/

There are (as of this writing) 636,795 new .com domain registrations
happening daily versus 67,077 new .ALLTHERESTPUBLICgTLD registrations per
day. What does this tell you about the desirability of
new/other-than-dotcom gTLDs at this time?

What you and some others seem to be promoting is a free-for-all which in
the final analysis would end up hurting the little people, i.e. the users
who initially made a personality out of you and voted you onto the ICANN
board. What you may have lost sight of is best embodied by that individual
who showed up at the Vancouver meeting and spoke at the public meeting
about how he depends on ICANN. What you, and some others, are promoting is
a wild west scenario that would leave both large and small businesses and
individuals confronted with a growing and ever-more confused mass of
taxonomic designations (because any suffix proposed to date is essentially
taxonomic), that would have the effect of:

1. creating more work for intellectual property lawyers;
2. driving companies and individuals to multiple gTLD registrations where
one would have sufficed;
3. making it harder to implement any realistic oversight that would lead
to ever greater potential for abuse, chicanery and/or corruption;

There are more possible ill effects, but for me those three are worth
serious consideration.

Now, I am not saying that no more gTLDs should ever be introduced again. 
What I am saying is that the honeymoon period of the DNS is over and some
real work has to be done to properly establish standards.  Otherwise, what
we'll pass on to the future will be just another mess that we'll leave
behind for them to clean up.

>
> And there are lots of TLD names in the competing roots (like my .ewe).

Very nice for .ewe.  I won't be registering one of your .ewe TLDS anytime
soon, but I wish you the best of luck in promoting "competing roots".

>
> Why should it matter if your clients get confused?  Should you or I or
>anyone be blocked from putting out a new brand of laundry soap because
some >people might find it confusing to see another brightly colored box
on
> the shelves of their local supermarket?

Well Karl, my response to that is that you probably don't understand how
supermarkets work, so I wll help you.  A supermarket has limited shelf
space for the products it sells, so there are always brands left out which
are struggling to get in.  Salespeople come and go all day long peddling
their brands and store managers (or chain managers etc.) make a decision
about what goes on their shelves based on what they believe will satisfy
their clients and make them a reasonable (or better) profit.

>
> And should you or I or anyone be denied the opportunity to create a new
>gasoline hybrid automobile for the marketplace based on your client's
>feeling that they'd rather have a hydrogen powered BMW?
>

This analogy is no better so I won't waste my time dealing with it, but it
goes much the same way.

>
> The kind of mentality of a priori economic and marketplace engineering is
> completely at odds with a free an open marketplace and is instead a return
> to the kind of Five Year Plans found in the old USSR.

I am hardly a fan of Communism or the old USSR.

If everybody and his mother's uncle who owned a spade and a tar trolley
decided to start laying out roads everywhere across the country that they
pleased (because they were technically capable of doing so), just reflect
upon what kind of a road network would develop...

Compliments of the Season,

Sotiris Sotiropoulos
----

I was from Connecticut, whose Constitution declares "that all political
power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on
their authority and instituted for their benefit; and that they have AT
ALL TIMES an undeniable and indefeasible right to ALTER THEIR FORM OF
GOVERNMENT in such a manner as they may think expedient.
                                  --- A Connecticut Yankee by Twain, Mark