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

["Gene Marsh" <marshm@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

An interesting thought, your last.

Imagine, actually assessing the technical abilities of the applicant, and
their proven success in launching new products and services as a metric for
determining their viability.  Seems I've heard that somewhere before - in a
recurring nightmare I have from November 2000.

Can you imagine:

"ABC123 Co., we have examined your history, success with product and service
launches, financial stability and technical resources.  You have what it
takes to launch a new TLD.  What TLD would you like to launch?"

I guess that would be too much like a potentially successful capitalist
approach.  Can't have that in the new world order.  Someone might make
money!

Merry Christmas, Karl.

ICANN?  Humbug.

Gene...

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Karl Auerbach
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2005 7:48 PM
To: kidsearch
Cc: Danny Younger; ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ga] DOT BERLIN -- It's a problem...


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--


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