what a load of nonsense
clearly the process should be based around some kind of dance-off.
Who should own .web? Will the internet get a .porn address? What does Google plan to do with 50 new top-level domains? Why is ICANN putting companies through an online "archery game" that requires millisecond timing? These questions and more will be asked and answered tomorrow as domain name policy overlord ICANN reveals the …
So.... rather than doing things the way they are and for instance allowing .search and .lol to be a TLD that anyone can register for - eg lol.lol and funny.lol etc - someone will own .lol and no-one else will be able to register a site under that TLD?
Surely ICANN would get much more money by operating the new TLD's the way the existing ones work? I could for instance have borders.weather. I'm sure there are thousands of sites that would love xxxxx.science etc? even www.theregister.tech ?
It's the wild west, and ICANN is the biggest of the cowboys.
Are they running an organisation, a business, or a social club raffle? I don't think they have demonstrated that they're qualified to run any of those. Make up your mind what you are, and do things with a little more forethought, and less "yeah, that could be fun".
I agree, and this to me signals the time when it's more appropriate for ICANN to come under control of the ITU. The idea that a company registered in California can dictate global naming issues to every government in the world bar the US which has higher authority isn't diplomatically sustainable once ICANN sets a foot wrong, and now they have. BTW, the ITU are the group responsible for deciding national telephone prefixes, and they wouldn't get away with the equivalent behaviour in that namespace.
As soon as ICANN reveals the public portions of these applications – confidential financial information and some sensitive technical data will be redacted – a 60-day comment period begins. This is every internet user's chance to put their oar in: if you don't like any specific application for whatever reason, you can file an informal objection at no charge.
Lets object to every single last one of them, and try to put an end to the TLD racket which will be used to extort defensive registrations from every business on the internet over and over again.
For so long they've sat as an almost passive target for ridicule, just making periodic astonishingly stupid and arrogant decisions to keep it fueled. We were becoming positively blasé, but this initiative boldly ups their game.
With any luck they'll concede that with "digital archery" there's too much randomness and opt for the pure skill & raw talent of a Han Solo dance-off:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OnDizZ7UT0&feature=player_embedded#t=1m30s
There's an illuminating comment on Slashdot (all credit to the author) pointing to http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/advisory-12oct01-en.htm .
Apparently, you can't have people paying for the TLDs and use random selection to batch them, according to Californian lottery law. This 'digital archery' thing is essentially a legal wheeze to get around the lottery law, like those ridiculous 'skill testing questions' you get in newspaper contests and the like.
It still comes off as ridiculous, but there is apparently a decent reason for it.