Specific goals

[Tavit Ohanian <tavit@lanart.com>]

It seems to me that not everyone agrees on the problem definition, 
and the discussion is thrashing...

Perhaps a *specific* list of issues people want addressed, and 
objectives to be achieved should be composed and agreed upon 
before discussing proposed solutions.

Here's what I've seen already (no significance implied by order):

1) Single/few iTLDs cannot scale to support the forseeable growth demands.
2) iTLD based markets ought not be monopolised and be subject to market forces.
3) iTLD administration ought not be politicised.
4) The reasons for which markets have embraced .COM must be preserved if
   at all possible, or be a driving force in choosing among alternative
   proposals.
5) Trademark conflicts ought to be eliminated if possible, or at least not
   promoted because of the network administration process. But don't expect
   an Ad Hoc committee to solve this problem any time soon.

Here's my take on achieving the above:

a) Have the IETF process decide on iTLDs and leave the *ownership* in IANA.
   This addresses "3)".

b) Assign new iTLD symbols in a manner that addresses "4)" and "5)" which 
   in turn addresses "1)". My approach would be to pick symbols people 
   would think of when they are interested in locating whatever it is they 
   are looking for. Consider how Usenet news topics are organized, consider
   how people use (paper) "Yellow Pages", etc... I believe what symbols make 
   up the initial iTLD set is not important, and the iTLD set will evolve 
   based on need and market forces. This does not eliminate trademark 
   conflicts, but does address the problem of the same name used in different
   markets colliding under .COM.

c) Develop technology which allows multiple root servers for any single 
   iTLD (I think DNS is fine for this). Let market forces dictate the 
   rules of engagement among iTLD root server owners, like it is done 
   today for routing. Any ISP can claim to provide a root server for a 
   set of iTLDs. In fact, nothing stops an ISP from advertising any symbol
   as a TLD, a particular TLD symbol may find market success in one or 
   more locals, and with sufficient interest be adopted as iTLD. 
   This addresses "2)".

Tavit