TLDs & identity

[Amadeu Abril i Abril <Amadeu@bcnet.upc.es>]

What kinds of TLDs do we need/want?

Most of the discussion seems directed to the new *commercial* TLDs) by
commercial I mena all purpose, open-to-all TLDs competing with .com,
even if brand- or industry-specific) and their relation to trademarks
(.web; .biz..tvn....). Some (Simon Higgs) have also advocated the
creation of new *private* (and closed) TLDs for world-wide well known
organizations (.ibm?)

But what about new non-commercial TLDs? Domain names are, basically,
*idntifiers*  as they tell wether I am (or I belong to, or I work for)
an University, the Amercian Government or military, an ISP, a non-profit
organization or a business company. Or wether I am somehow related to
Japan, France or South Africa. They identify the community I belong to.
Rectius: they identify the community I choose to be related to in
Internet-communication terms: I can choose between abril.es; abril.com;
abril.org etc (well, all these names are already registered :-(, so I
could try abril.za or abril.pc...). The fact is taht I can choose how I
want to be identified regardless of my passport. Even if I'd never
choose abril.pc because I can't immagine any relation between me and the
Pacific islands.

We have the *cosed* TLDs (.mil;. .gov) the activity-and-country
restricted ones (.edu) the activity specific (.org; .net) the
country-specific (but actually open) (.es; .us;. .uk..) and the open
ones (.com and aparently, all the new iTLDs). Besides these categories
one can imagine another one: the community TLDs.

Now imagine that I feel taht my closest community (for Internet
purposes) is not an inddependent State or territorial entity included in
the ISO 3166 list neither an industry or business branch. Why not
supporting the creation of community-identifying iTLDs for, say, gipsies
(.rom?), feminist groups or activist (.fem? .woman?) muslims (.islam?)
esperanto speakers or people belonging to cultures/nations without a
soverign state or partially embracing several, like eskimos, American
indians; or swahuili-speakers....?

The fact is that most of these TLDs will be fairly reduced in number of
registrations (compared to the truely commercial TLDs) or even run in a
non-profit basis. 

Is the IAHC considering the creation of TLDs and, thus registries, that
limit beforehand their potential *clients* to some thousands and will
not be able to make one-of-the-75-highest-bids-around-the-world?

Amadeu, who wants, among others, a TLD for Catalonia

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ Amadeu Abril i Abril                 Abril@esade.es (Law
School)         +
+ Professor de Dret Comunitari         Amadeu@bcnet.upc.es
(home)          +
+ Facultat de Dret d'ESADE            
www://http:www-acad.esade.es/~abril +
+ Universitat Ramon
Llull                                                  +
+ Av. Pedralbes,
60-62                                                     +
+ E - 08015 Barcelona (Catalonia;
EU)                                      +