CircleID

ICANN's present rollout of a series of unwarranted and unwanted (except by the stakeholders) new TLDs requires a few comments about whether the same thing in terms of web addresses can be achieved with far less expense and disruption. It is easy to be critical about ICANN, because ICANN policies, especially in connection with new TLDs, invite criticism. These new TLDs appear to be thoughtless impediments to rational management of the root. Rationalizing top-level domains is okay so long as traffic and, especially, public utility require it. New TLDs arranged around product or service definitions (which with one or two exceptions is what the new TLDs are about) will not make it easier to locate product or service-related information on the web from content producers. ICANN has conveniently ignored this common sense variable. It is as if ICANN had decided to reinvent the telephone numbering system and did that by rolling back ten-digit area codes in order to replace them with the old mnemonic prefixes like butterfield or calumet followed by seven-digit phone numbers. (Try mnemonic phone calls with that kind of a method and see what happens.) A reasonable number of TLD naming arrangements in the Internet name space has real limitations where millions of users are involved. Product and service-specific TLDs introduced holus-bolus are mystifying for average users and they also create additional cost and legal burdens for merchants. What these TLDs actually are is a name-peering method that segregates (rather than integrates)web-site and URL identification for average users and, thus, adds layers of needless and nonsensical data replication for the search engines. There also are additional business burdens related to trademark issues and,not incidentally, numerous and needless domain name purchases to protect brand names (which is fine if the company is Ford Motors or Sears). At any rate, NAME PEERING on the public Internet can be done with level-three and level-four subdomains attached to a single TLD through the use of product and service-specific master channels. What ICANN apparently wants is the 0.25 levy for each new (and unnecessary) domain name from its cadre of registrars, regardless of the confusion and economic hardship this creates. What ICANN should realize is that the name-peering method through the use of generic (or natural language) master channels is within the present scope of the dot-com name space itself, and that the method is not only more rational from the standpoint of utility; but, that the master channels method has already been invented and integrated within the dot-com name space and is, thus, independent from ICANN oversight beyond the registration of level two dot-com domains. A coherent and fully integrated network with hundreds of perfectly resolvable product and service-specific master(generic)channels sits astride the dot-com TLD at this moment. That simple network can do exactly the same thing in terms of public access and utility, as the prolific aggregation of unwarranted and unwanted small business killers now being rolled out by ICANN.

Ten years, and we're still waiting.

The decision of adding .mobi and .jobs as sTLD's (Sponsored TLD's) is a good one as far as it goes but to add a additional registration fee that goes to ICANN and that neither of these sTLD's actually have demonstrated sponsorship is where the idea and the reality becomes at least murky.

In my and our members opinion the idea of .mobi ever being a well received sTLD is very questionable at best as it does not well denote what it is supposed to represent for mobil users/stakeholders.

Like ICANN's decision regarding .name and .museum the new two accepted sTLD's are facing a very hard and long uphill challenge as they are not identifiable or useful sTLD's that have good marketing value, with the possible exception of .jobs…

This TLD selection process that ICANN and the GNSO in particular, shows clearly that those making such decisions have a weak sense of good business acumen.