Re: What is a shared registry?

[Paul A Vixie <paul@vix.com>]

> [...] It is not appropriate for all TLDs to be shared. [...]

I strongly disagree.  All iTLDs should be shared eventually.  (This
includes COM and ORG and NET, but not EDU or MIL.)  A registry should
be better or worse than another because service quality and/or price
differs -- not because they are camped onto a good name.

Note that this is not a requirement before further progress gets made.
By all means let each registry pick an iTLD (or several?) and let them
have exclusive authority over it for the first 6 months or so.  But
make sure they sign a quit-claim to all permanent ownership rights and
make sure they are forced to write, by hand, across the front of the
signature page: "I WILL SHARE THIS NAME OR GIVE IT UP WHEN IANA TELLS
ME THAT IT IS TIME TO SHARE IT.  I AGREE TO ESCROW MY CUSTOMER DATABASE."

This will no doubt be seen as a severe barrier to entry by those who
could never compete on price or service level and are planning instead
to just camp onto an "attractive" (nuisance) iTLD that people will pay
any price to be listed in even if the service is lousy.

To those people I say: find another business, the Internet is full.