Re: New TLDs and Registry charters

[Vince Wolodkin <wolodkin@digitalink.com>]

Daniel Kaplan wrote:
> 
> A (At) 9:53 10/12/96, kslim ecrivait (wrote):
> >I would say let's leave it to the Courts to decide who has the right and
> >not get involved in this any more.  Let's just stick to the
> >organisational and technical issues.
> 
> If there was one signle trade law in the world, and/or one sigle trademark
> registry, we could leave it to the courts. As we're designing a global
> system in a not-so-global world, we need to do more than that. The problem
> is: where's the balance?
> 

Perhaps we should stop trying to design a global system?

Has anyone thought about the root cause of all these problems?  It's
pretty simple.  Somehow, people seem to think that because the internet
makes the whole world accessible in your home, that we should be able to
locate ANY company in the world by using a single word.  WoW!

In no other facet of life is this theory upheld.  Noone expects to be
able to call anyone in the world with a 4 digit number, its impossible. 
And yet, somehow, we all expect to "call" on the internet, anyone in the
world with a short, simple name.  Well, it's not possible.

So, some type of system needs to be set up to easily find who you are
looking for.  I know DNS is not a directory service so hopefully we can
avoid those flames.  But despite the fact that DNS is not a directory
service, people go on expecting to find companies there.

Well, there is a start.  Let's forget the internet for a while.  How do
you find a company.  Well, you probably use a directory.  Ah, but
directories are generally local aren't they.  You might use a business
directory for the particular area you were interested in.  Or someone
might tell you about a company.

So we can look for a company geographically, business categorically, or
hmmm, what was the last one?  Oh yes, word of mouth.  How do we find a
company we have only heard about.  Well, we probably use one of the
directories we just talked about.

So now we need to contact them.  Well, we can go there, write them or
call them(we are skipping the internet right now).  Wow!  What do you
know, the only ways available to contact them are geographic in nature. 
Anyone catching on yet?

So why do we still expect to find companies on the internet in any other
way?  Probably we expect a little to much from our computer systems. 
They are pretty great, but let's view them realistically.

So, what's wrong with internet addresses being geographic?  It is after
all, what we are most accustomed to.

Vince WOlodkin

> Daniel
> 
> ---------------------------------------------
> Daniel KAPLAN           dkaplan@terra-nova.fr
> Consultant  -  Media & Commerce Electroniques
>             -  Electronic  Commerce  &  Media
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