[At-Large] Thoughts on Delaying New gTLDs

[McTim]

hi all,

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 4:08 AM, John L <johnl at iecc.com> wrote:
>>> * The economic impact study promised in 2006 [needs to be] released and
>>> evaluated.
>
>> This was the principal reason advanced by the NTIA, but it rests on a
>> faulty premise. The NTIA assumes that the primary purpose of introducing new
>> gTLDs is to compete with .COM and the other incumbents. They believe -- as
>> do I -- that new gTLDs will not alter the market power exercised by the
>> incumbents in the TLDs they operate. Based on this assumption, they then
>> make the leap that ICANN may not need to introduce new gTLDs at all.
>
> I read it as a little more sophisticated than that; they have the not
> unreasonable concern that new TLDs may exist mostly to shake down existing
> registrants who'd want defensive registrations in new domains.
>

quite reasonable concern IMHO.


>> As I have always seen it, new gTLDs will serve new communities, and in
>> some cases serve those communities with their own languages, not served by
>> the current suite of gTLDs and ccTLDs.
>
> I know that those are the standard examples, but the more I think about it,
> the less sense it makes.  The idea that there are tiny language groups
> hanging around saying "oh, if only we had a TLD then we would do all sorts
> of Internet stuff" is rather implausible.  They need software that works in
> their language, perhaps they need people to put their literature online, or
> to make libraries of existing material, or to host community mail systems
> and web sites, but what they do not need is a $100,000 vanity TLD to suck up
> their time and attention.

This is my sense as well.

<snip>

-- 
Cheers,

McTim
http://stateoftheinternetin.ug