The nation’s foremost business newspaper has finally discovered the business-process patent disaster. This story is long overdue, but it’s a reasonable introduction to why the system is utterly broken.
Top Level Domains and ICANN Elections
The The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which governs the domain-name system that lets computers find each other on the Internet, announced that it’s received 47 applications for new top-level domains (TLDs). The list is extremely instructive, because it shows that ICANN’s plan to allow just a couple of new TLDs is a huge mistake.
Jamie Love, director of the Consumer Project on Technology, makes good sense when he says:
“The new TLD applications illustrate how limited the current domainspace is, and how rich it could be. The old policy of stoppinginnovation will be permanently discredited by this application process. ICANN now needs to move ahead to permit greater choice and moreinnovations in the TLD name space.“Among the surprises were the large number of applications, and the widerange of strings and management models. We are very pleased to see thevarious non-commercial proposals such as .union, .museum, .coop and.health, and we are also pleased to see the proposed competitors to.com, the personal domains and the various industry trade associationproposals for restricted domains, plus the innovative proposals such as.geo, which would involve new technologies. In looking at the variousproposals, it will be interesting to see how they address issues such asprotection of trademark interesets, free speech, and the protection ofconsumers on pricing issues. There are many different approaches oneach of these issues. It was funny to see .xxx and .kids on the sameapplication.
“I don’t see how the ICANN board can approve only 3 and have anycreditability with the Internet community. Now it is time to expand theroot, and let innovation and competition move forward.”
Under ICANN’s review procedure, there will be a public-comment period beginning later this week. Be sure to participate.
Meanwhile, there’s a vote going on for at-large members of the ICANN board of directors. Here are my recommendations.