Re: Lost without Industry Associations or Specific Groups

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Werner and all,

 Please read below your comments. 

Werner Staub wrote:
> 
> I went through all the previous emails in the thread
> "Re: Thread 5: Defining the namespace" and compiled
> the following list of new TLDs as suggested in various
> messages.
> 
>  .aid .alt .arts .biz .cat .cult .cyber
>  .ent (Entertainment) .geo .glob .home .inet .inter
>  .iway .law .mall .mail .med .movie .news .now .ppl .radio
>  .rec .ref .sci .sex .soc .web .www
> 
> That brings us to about 30 - a far cry from the IAHC
> self-imposed limit to 7 new TLDs.

  I mentioned this several times several days ago.
It as usual went pretty much ignored.  It is not 
reasonable that ONLY 7 new TLDs can be used.  I said
10-20.  And looks like I was pretty close.
> 
> Only some of them - maybe .sex, .ref, .movie, .aid,
> .med and .law - are clear enough, have sufficient
> financial thrust and are therefore likely to succeed. Most
> of the other ones, IMHO, have a 30% chance of success.
> Depending on how the IAHC selects the 7 TLDs, there is a
> big risk of reaping more problems than solutions.

  I agree.  7 isn't nearly enough and will there fore cause
discord and confusion.  Also the selection process for these
self imposed 7 TLDs is not clearly outlined either. Though
that would be difficult.  Maybe a lottery, huh?
> 
> However, at least .aid, .med and .law if not all of them must
> be run by an appropriate international industry association
> - or just a loose group of national associations -
> if IANA, ISOC and the IAHC don't want to get into big
> trouble. Or just how else can ISOC avoid being sued for
> indirectly allowing a questionable mail-order drug firm
> from registering under .med? Lets face it: only an industry
> association has the know-how that is needed in this case.

  I agree here as well.  It could be that IACH could use the
advice of an industry association in good standing on a 
consulting basis.
> 
> The IAHC may decide that this is indeed too dangerous and
> only allow fairly meaningless new TLDs like .biz, .alt or
> .geo. That would be a great loss for everybody, especially
> the users.

  I believe that this is also problamatic as well.  It 
seems that this is the direction that IAHC WANT's to go
however.  If not, members, speak up!
> 
> If the Internet needs the professional or industry
> associations, they should be contacted and encouraged to
> take responsibility for a portion of the name space. The
> fact that they did not contact the IANA only shows that
> they don't even know about the technical possibility of
> running new TLDs.

  This has been my suspicion all along.  And if true,
than it dosn't matter what or how many TLDs are selected
nor under what process.  Definition of how, who, and with what
is required needs to be specified as part of the final draft.
> 
> The need for help from industry associations also shows
> that one of the premises of the IAHC draft is fundamentally
> wrong: the attempt to specify the same or similar administration
> methods for all TLDs. Fore some TLDs, sharing is good and
> for others it is pure nonsense. For some TLDs, a waiting
> period is a solution and for others it is pure red tape.

  I came to this conclusion some time ago after reading some
of Chris'es postings.  Compleatly shared will not work.  
In addition any waiting period longer than 10 days IS red
tape.
> 
> The IAHC draft does not even mention industry groups.
> At the very least, the IAHC draft should formally ask for
> gTLD business plans from industry associations and specify
> that general rules can be waived if the management by the
> industry association makes them unnecessary.

  This is a good idea.  But I am not sure that CORE will
be satisfied with what is drawn up along these lines. 
> 
> Talking about industry association or clearly-defined
> groups, I would like to suggest three TLDs for which I just
> happen to know that there is a pressing need and for which
> no name conflicts can arise.
> 
> .air   - Airports and Airlines: The fact is that they
>  already are organised in a homogenous name space
>  thanks to the International Air Transport Association
>  (IATA) which should obviously control the registry.
>  Currently, finding an airport on the Web is an
>  adventure because the IATA codes cannot be projected
>  into a existing registry. Airport and airline addresses
>  can and should be guessable. There is _no_ potential
>  for conflict because the codes are already managed.
> 
>  If the IAHC understands this early enough, people will
>  simply be able to type
> 
>  http://JFK.air for John F. Kennedy Airport
>  http://CDG.air for Charles-de-Gaulle (Paris) Airport
>  http://GVA.air for Geneva airport.
>  http://GRU.air for Garulhos (Sao Paulo) Airport
>  http://SR.air for Swissair
>  http://AF.air for Air France
> 
>  The airports and airlines can naturally continue to
>  use their existing names (e.g. Swissair.ch and
>  Swissair.com)
> 
> .city  - Reserved for governments of internationally
>  known cities or organisations formally delegated by
>  the city government.
> 
>  Each city has only one government (barring some
>  unfortunate cases). Identical names are rare and
>  up the Cities have already learned to live with them.
>  It is therefore easy to establish rules for cities to
>  be registered under their English or native names,
>  giving precedence to the bigger/better known city in
>  case of identical names.
> 
>  Right  now, under .com, .org and .<iso 3166>, we have
>  two problems: (1) it is difficult to find the official
>  city server (2) it is often unclear who is behind
>  the server (the city or the tourist office, or
>  is it a private company, or is it a little web
>  entrepreneur who signed up a couple of hotels?).
> 
>  If the IAHC understands this early enough, people will
>  simply be able to type
> 
>  http://NewYork.city
>  http://Frankfurt.city  for Frankfurt-am-Main
>  http://Frankfurt-Oder.city  for Frankfurt-an-der-Oder
>  http://Geneva.city as an alternative to www.geneva-city.ch
> 
> .cci   - Chambers of Commerce and Industry directly or
>  indirectly affiliated with the International Chamber of
>  Commerce in Paris  (http://www.iccwbo.org, not to be
>  confused with the Internet Chamber of Commerce alias
>  www.icc.org).
> 
>  There thousands of chambers of commerce in the World
>  and they need to have identifiable and guessable names
>  in the interest of the public at large.
> 
>  If the IAHC and the ICC in Paris understand this early
>  enough, people will simply be able to refer to a
>  homogenous name space for chambers of commerce and
>  ICC national committees world-wide, e.g.
>  http://icc.cci  (the ICC itself)
>  http://kuala-lumpur.icc (the Kuala Lumpur Chamber of Commerce)
>  http://saopaulo.icc (the Sao Paulo Chamber of Commerce)
> 
> If the IAHC really wants to limit the number of new
> TLDs, I sincerely believe that clear-cut formal or
> implicit industry groups should be given first priority.
> (As a matter of fact, .sex needs immediate action to allow
> "interested" sites to disentangle from the rest as
> quickly as possible.)

  I agree with all of the suggestions on TLD names you made
with the possible exception of CCI.  I would call it COC.
> 
> Unspecific TLDs like .www or so can wait until the
> 7-TLD-limit has been overcome.
> 
Regards,
-- 
Jeffrey A. Williams
DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java Development Eng.
Information Eng. Group. 
Phone :972-447-1878
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com