Re: [ga] DOT BERLIN -- It's a problem...

[Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 23 Dec 2005, kidsearch wrote:

> So, then Paris, TX could get the .paris domain.

Nah, that goes to a well known member of the Hilton clan.

As I've said before - there are perhaps as many as several tens of 
millions of names that will fit into the root zone before it, or the 
servers handling it, or the distribution mechanisms for moving it, or the 
administrative process of managing it goes boom.

And even if we were to assume 10**8 name slots for TLDs (and most 
observers don't go that high) that is an insufficient amount to cover the 
number of plausible applicants who want to plug names into those slots

Thus, no matter what happens we have to come up with some mechanism to say 
to each applicant either "you get the nod" or "you do not".

Now, personally I think that .berlin is about as valid as .van-nuys, the 
latter being the part of Los Angeles in which is found Van Nuys High 
School, the home of the internet.  (In other words, I think .berlin is a 
pretty silly idea.)

But silly TLD ideas deserve to suceed or fail on their own merits, just 
like silly ideas like chia pets and Hummers are allowed.

Our economic system has evolved to use money as a kind of metric of merit 
- presumably the more your idea has backing the more money you can raise 
to back it.  Hence the notion that auctions are a good mechanism.

Auctions do raise some questions:

First is who gets the proceeds?

Second is that we know deep in our hearts that there are meritorious uses 
that simply can't come up with lots of dollars.

Third is how do we garbage collect the failures (and how do we measure 
failure) so that the slot can be recycled?

I don't have a good answer for the first question, but I know a 
non-answer: ICANN.

As for the second question, to my mind the answer is a limited carve out 
for a lottery system for some part of the available slots.

(And as always, I use "slots" to indicate that the choice of the character 
string is really a matter for the winner of the slot, not for the 
regulatory body that allocates the slots.)

		--karl--