new TLDs by petition

[Mark Lottor <mkl@nw.com>]

  There are a number of things I very much dislike about the IAHC gTLD
draft proposal.  Specifically: Seven new TLDs are not enough to solve
the current problems.  The names should not be decided on by a small
committee.  There should not be forced sharing of the new names as
this does not promote competition in price or service.
 
  Although I was pretty happy with the original Postel proposal for
new TLDs, I would like to propose a new way to select TLDs that
I think solves most complaints about the other processes:
 
  Having a handful of people decide on seven new names without regard
to what names users actually want is ridiculuous and the new names
will surely be argued about for months.  I propose that new TLDs be
given out on a petitioning procedure that shows actual demand for the
names (similar to how new newsgroups are started), as follows:
 
  Any business or organization or individual can get a new TLD.  The
requirement is that they must prove there is demand and customers for
the TLD.
 
  Potential customers would fill out a form or something on a web site
(of the company proposing the new TLD, or maybe on an IAHC web site)
that described the proposed TLD, its administrator, and associated
charges.  The customer would fill out their name and 'sign' something
saying they would more than likely acquire such a new second-level
name under that TLD should it be approved.
 
  When 10,000 (or some such large number) of applications have been
collected they would be sent in to a committee (IAHC?) that would
verify(?) the names and issue the new TLD.  New TLDs would be issued
on a first-come-first-serve basis to whoever could collect the 10,000
applicants first.
 
  This would be a pretty fair system.  It would ensure that any new
TLDs are actually used for a reasonably large number of names before
they were issued.  It would also allow competition for new TLDs to
whoever could market them better to get the initial application in
first.  Potential customers would mostly only sign up with a company
they thought was capable of administering the domain properly.  It
would eventually be self-limiting as users would not sign petition
applications for new domains once they were happy with the ones they
had or that existed.
 
  New TLDs would not have to be generic.  An associaton of doctors for
example might want to get .DOCTOR if they can get 10K doctors to sign
up for names like <DR-JONES>.DOCTOR.
 
  Obviously, the petitioning proposal above rules out TLD sharing
unless a number of companies want to jointly propose to operate a new
TLD, subject to the same application requirements as above.
 
-Mark