More on New TLDs and Registry charters

[Daniel Kaplan <dkaplan@terra-nova.fr>]

At 12:10 -0000 6/12/96, Daniel Kaplan (my own self!) wrote:

>4/ While I support open creation of new iTLDs, I believe the Internet
>community should "reserve" some of them for common interest purposes, and
>grant one or more registries the right to run them after a bidding process
>whose criteria will include the will and ability to run the registries in a
>not-for-profit way:
>- names that point out to a generic portion or designation of the Internet
>(ie, .web, .net...)
>- some names which may help not-for-profit organizations become visible at
>a low price (ie, .org, .ngo, .hum...)
>
>5/ Should 4/ be decided, or should the IAHC decide to go for a proposal
>such as Simon Higgs', ie create only a limited set of new iTLDs, the IAHC
>should keep in mind that English is not the only language in the world. New
>iTLDs should not be mnemonic only for English-speaking people.

After some good advice from acute readers, let me expand on this:
If we settle for a limited number of new iTLDs, or if we reserve some
"common interest" names, we should make sure that each continent gets some
(equal, let's not argue about how many each one gets) share in the list to
be created/reserved. The Internet is global, but national/regional
interests do conflict at times and there are many languages: being truly
global requires taking this aspect into consideration.

This means that IAHC should *not* itself draft a list of new domains,
rather it should suggest a method to collectively draft this list,
providing the necessary time for all stakeholders to take part in the
process.

Daniel