[ga] Can live without .asia

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

Seeing as no one has commented on the .asia contracts yet, with only 2
days left, I think this is an indication there is no real interest in
the TLD, except by those who want to be running it and allocating the
profits from the registry to their pet causes.

As I previously suggested:

http://forum.icann.org/lists/new-gtlds-pdp-comments/msg00006.html

adding new TLDs like .asia pollutes the purity of the namespace, making
it cluttered, disorganized, irrational, and non-sensical. 

Indeed, for a registry that purportedly targets the audience of
internet users in Asia, does it make any sense at all that they chose a
TLD string that is in the ENGLISH language???!!!??? How many of those
Asian internet users even speak English? You would think they might be
sensitive to the cultural and linguistic imperialism that reflects
their choice of TLD string.

Perhaps they could have been a bit more creative, and come up with a
catchier TLD string that reflects the distinctiveness of the region,
that is culturally and linguistically neutral. Maybe something like
.bling or .woohoo or who knows what....maybe hold a contest, "name that
TLD".

I'd also be against the "presumptive renewal" clause of the contract.
Let them compete at the end of the term of the contract with others who
might be able to operate the registry successfully for the benefit of
its audience. There's no need to create permanent monopolies -- that's
simply repeating past mistakes, instead of learning from them.

The contracts also let the registry have too much pricing power, being
able to set its own policies. Given the recent global criticism of the
proposed .biz/info/org contracts:

http://forum.icann.org/lists/biz-tld-agreement/

it is clear registrants demand protection from registries who might be
able to wield too much power. Clearly ICANN needs to stay involved, and
provide a point of appeal in the event that the .asia registry operator
abuses its unlimited pricing power.

In the event that the registry is a "failure", there should be a
mechanism in the contract to permit ICANN to delete the TLD from the
root in the future. There should be predefined numeric metrics as to
what constitutes "success", e.g. 1 million+ domain names registered by
the end of the term of the contract, with a certain percentage (at
least 1%) of the global internet traffic going to domains in that TLD.
It's typical ICANN "old school" thinking to not define success metrics
before something is implemented, and then declare things a "glorious
success" later, without reference to any benchmarks.

In conclusion, the internet is better off without .asia polluting the
namespace. But, if it's going to be approved, get rid of the
presumptive renewal clause and put in some pricing protection
mechanisms for consumers. Lastly, success metrics should be defined,
with terminations procedures in place should minimum benchmarks not be
achieved.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/