Re: [ga] On the topic of "Rounds"

["kidsearch" <kidsearch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There is in no way sufficient namespace currently. Danny, I'm not sure what
you do for a living, but part of my income is derived from selecting domain
names for clients. These are some things people need to think over.

1. Right now, due to limited namespace, .com is king. No one wants a .biz
which is just a cheap imitation.

2. By creating very broadly defined tlds like .com and .biz, it forces
comapnies with the same trademark to compete for the one name that is
available in the broad category of "commercial" or "business".

3. Currently, only one company with a particular trademark gets to have
their trademarked name on the entire Internet, becuase only .coms truly
compete,  unless of course, they wish to be identified by .tv/tuvalu or some
other cc name where they may not even be located. Geographical names are not
a way to increase namespace and resolve this problem, therefore when adding
up how much namespace is out there please do not include cctlds as part of
the number of tlds that are available. For a business that does not want to
be identified geographically but instead be identified internationally, a
cctld is not a way to go or not a way many WISH to go.

4. Currently, because of the default tld being .com, namespace is severely
limited and people must register three and four word domain names if they
want to get a decent name. Those long domain names put them at a huge
disadvantage vs companies with one-word domain names. A different tld is
much easier to remember than a 4-word domain name.

5. Users who have not yet filed a domain name for their business are also at
a huge disadvantage. First come first serve is a great principle, as long as
you are not closing the door on everyone behind you. Future generations of
users and future businesses that have yet to be created will not be able to
have domain names in .com, which means under the current system, they are
automatically at a disadvantage. This is not fair business practices.

6. It is proven that creating more generic, broadly defined tlds is not the
answer. Compare .biz to .com.

7. Specific tlds that more narrowly define the types of business that own a
domain name in that tld will not confuse people, just the opposite. I don't
consider .aero and .museum hugely successful, however I think these type of
tlds are the future of the Internet and look forward to .atty, .cpa, and
more. The USPTO foresaw the need for many categories because they needed to
allow for a huge number of trademarks to be registered and because they
needed to be fair to all business and allow more than one trademark to be
registered for the same word or phrase, as long as it was in a different
category. There is no reason tlds cannot fulfill the same need.

9. The people who are generally against creating more tlds for businesses
are; Those who currently are in a good position with their domain name, such
as those who have a good .com name and don't want competition, like someone
that owns lawyer.com doesn't want there to be a .lyr tld, someone who has
search.com doesn't want their to be a search.anything else out there or
worse yet, many search.whatevers. It's self-preservation to them. But it is
also unfair to close the door to future registrants of domain names.

10. Creating room for everyone is the way to go. Example: Ford gets
Ford.com. Great. What about all the ford dealers, ford enthusiasts, people
whose last or even first name is ford who also own a business that doesn't
sell cars, etc?

Yes you can say well they can have their company name such as Joesford.com,
however, anyone who knows anything about search engine optimization and name
recognition, knows that a generic name that matches a word or phrase typed
into the search engines is a better domain name than a company name. It's
better to have both pointing to the same website or even more generic names
that point to particular pages in a website.

For example. If you have a hardware website and set up a page for hammers,
another for saws, another for nuts and bolts, etc. then you can point
hammers.whatever to the hammers page, saws.whatever to the saws page, etc.
It could be hammers.tools, hammers.hardware, or anything else related to
that.

The point is, that many companies own several domain names and are
continuing to register more names for this type of use and for other
purposes like creating more doorway pages that lead to their website. So
when we talk about the advantage some companies have over other current
companies and those yet to be created don't just think of one company, one
domain name.

It is not fair trade, by definition, to help companies who are currently in
a good position due to their domain names, defeat current or future
businesses who do not have one. It is, by definition, fair trade to open the
market to anyone who wants to create a new tld, guaranteeing there will be
plenty of namespace now and in the future.

"Fair trade" is used to refer to corporate governance and reforming
anti-competitive trade principles (such as antitrust issues). Sometimes (in
Korea and Japan, for example) these issues are pursued by organisations that
are called Fair Trade/Trading Commissions.

"Fair trade" can also refer to consumer rights and fair contracts. Office of
Fair Trading is a common name for an organisation that aims to protect these
interests and/or to facilitate a fair and ethical marketplace. Governmental
and non-governmental organisations with this name exist, for example, in the
United Kingdom and Australia.

In United States history, "Fair trade" can refer to laws in place starting
in the 1930s and continuing until the 1970s. Those laws, first formalized
nationally in the Miller-Tydings Act of 1937, protected independent
retailers from the price-cutting competition of large chain stores by
permitting manufacturers to specify the minimum retail price of a product.

"Fair Trade" is also defined by laws that protect consumers from
corporations becoming a monopoly. Right now, the person that owns cars.com,
jewelry.com, hotels.com, etc. do not have the legal definition of a
monopoly, but they do have a huge advantage over anyone with a 3-word domain
name in .com and an even larger advantage over someone with a domain name in
another currently available tld. This business advantage has been
artificially created by restricting namespace. The playing field can only be
leveled by allowing as many tlds as the market will allow.

The market will determine which tlds are viable and which tlds are not. It
will be weeded out by evolutionary means. We cannot predict which tlds will
or will not be viable. We do not have a crystal ball. Hewlett Packard had
smart executives who thought no one would ever want a pc in their homes.
Xerox executives could see no use for a user interface or a mouse. None of
us on this list, nor those on the ICANN BoD are smart enough to be able to
predict what will or will not be viable in the future. If we try to do so we
will fail and in the meantime will be acting unfairly toward people who have
ideas they wish to move forward with.

Chris McElroy
http://www.newsandmediablog.com



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Danny Younger" <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2005 7:41 AM
Subject: [ga] On the topic of "Rounds"


> Jeff writes:  "There is no need for "Rounds" for
> applying for new
> TLD's.  Such a notion again thwarts the free market
> system"
>
> When some group applies for the rights to set up a
> radio station or a TV channel they have to go through
> a process.  The people  that are charged with managing
> the allocations can only process a finite amount of
> applications at a time.  Each such set of applications
> is handled in a "round".  The system of "rounds" is
> workable and doesn't thwart the free market system as
> evidenced by the hundreds of TV and radio channels
> made available to the public over the course of many
> years.
>
> Further, the Internet community has the right to
> create policy.  It can choose to manage the process
> through policies designed to preference certain
> categories of applicants at certain times in response
> to what it deems to be substantial need.
>
> For instance, we can decide that if over the next two
> years we can only process 50 TLD applications, that we
> will set up a round strictly for IDN applications
> since the non-English-speaking world has absolutely no
> IDNs in the root at this time and deserves their
> chance at participation.
>
> Just because we can establish a mechanism that allows
> for TLD applications to go into a queue which can be
> processed on a first come first serve basis doesn't
> mean that we have to do it this way.
>
> The way that we choose to allocate is a policy choice.
>
>
> Personally, I think that the English-speaking world
> has a sufficient number of TLD choices at this time
> and I take note of George Kirikos's argument that many
> such TLDs are far from being "filled up" at present.
>
> I'm in favor of giving the rest of the world their
> turn.  It's fair.
>
>
>
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