sTLD (was Re: ---- )

[Benjamin Azevedo <benjamin_azevedo@ibm.net>]

Tim Beckham wrote:
> 
> Dear gtld-mou'ers
> 
...
> 
> What I want to address is more related to the philosophy of the effort.  It
> seems pertinent to re-examine the question, "Why expand the number of gtld's
> at all?"
> 
  Because current situation is not confortable, almost everybody would
agree.

  And because there is not so much effort doing it.

  Major effort is to determine how to expand it ?
and
  Who will control new (and current) TLD ?

  And point here is that this control seems to be a very profitable
business.
  I am sure everybody also feels this.
 
> I suppose that in answering this question there are a myriad of reasons that
> one can propose, but any reason has to be justified, first and foremost, on
> an answer of "no" to the question, "Can the present system be made to work
> without overhauling it?"  It seems to me that the answer to that is "yes".
> There is, after all, no practical limit to the number of possible
> configurations of the 26 letters of the alphabet, plus 10 digits, plus the
> hyphen in creating domain names using the gtlds of .com, .net and .org.  We
> all know this.  And we all know that the only reason to change is to allow
> more folks to grab a few more of the available "vanity" and trademark names
> that are far more limited.
> 

  Yes, when we start using to name sites with domain names that reflect 
companies' names it's natural that following companies also want to do
the 
same, as visitors also use to try these in order to find sites.

  Because of this .COM became a very sparselly occupied name space.
  It's clearly overcrouded we all feel,
  but this is true only because everybody just consider 
  using a small subset of it as domain names.

  Most possible combinations are not likely to be registered 
by anybody.
  Who wants a domain like
      http://www.euy46tnndk50doi98erhf.com  ?
  Nobody even if it's given away for free !

> Yet I wonder if that goal is really worth all this effort.  No one can have
> exactly what they want, no matter what the issue is at stake.  We all
> learned this before we got out of diapers.  Many folks on the Net are going
> to have to settle for domain names that "off the target" for their
> particular needs, no matter how many gtld's we create.  --  

  Maybe it's hard to make possible a "first choice" domain name for 
  everybody just creating a few more gTLD.
  But WHY not to solve the problem of a lot of people ?
  If one new gTLD is created, we potentially solve not one problem,
but thousands (maybe million) of new acceptable domains are created.

  Some problems remain, for instance:
      Q: How to avoid the .COM domain owner feel pressed to duplicate
         its registration on new gTLD ?
      A: - Add various new gTLD at once, now that demand is acumulated
         - Make clear that new ones will be added later
  	 - Choose carefully wich TLD's to add (**)
         - Choose TLD that have natural assignments (**)
           (** I will explain these points later)

      Q: How to avoid confusion caused excessive number of new TLD?
      A: - Try to make them meaningful (***)
         - Try to make them pratical  (***)
           (*** I will explain these points later)

> Unless, of
> course, we allow an infinite number of gtld's, and that eliminates the point
> of gtld's by trivializing their meaning and making the tracking and
> recording of them impossible for the average person.
> 

  There is harm to create infinite (or near infinite)new TLD's,
but there is no reason to make it.
  But there are very good reasons to create a lot of new TLD's.

  It is not worst to have many different TLD to choose than
having just one (as today) with the troubles transfered to 
domain names, that  get unpredictable, making the tracking and
recording of them impossible for the average person.

> Few restaurant owners get to put their restaurants on 5th avenue in NYC.
> Few companies get the exact 800 number they want.  Few folks can get their
> last names for vanity license plates.  And we can all get along if just a
> few lucky folks wind up with the choice domain names for their particular
> industry.  That is the way the world works.  Some folks just get there first.

  In this case it's easy and harmless to add new TLD.
  And it adds comfort and functionality.
  Indeed it may be accomplished in many different ways,
that is the big problem, HOW is it to be done, and WHO will 
manage it.

> 
> What's so wrong with that?  We've got a system that can work, if we just let
> it be imperfect.  I say that's O.K.

  It is working, but *friction* is too high.
  And we need not this friction.

I do believe there is a calm way to do it.

a)Make domain names more "national" as much as possible
  How?
  I propose to create a paralel set of setorial domains under 
iso3166 country TLD.

  Assign these domain to representative and organized sectors of 
the society.
  Delegate registration under these domain to sector's national
association, that would assign domain names just for its members
solving internally any conflict (if some appears).

  For example, in addition to geografic based city.state.us
(that seems not very used because of its lenghty names),
we could create specif (closed) top domain (under .us);

  Examples:    tv.us   abc.tv.us  nbc.tv.us   cnn.tv.us
             bank.us  citybank.bank.us   boston.bank.us
             shop.us  gap.shop.us  limited.shop.us 
	      air.us  united.air.us  american.air.us 
             news.us  nytimes.news.us  time.news.us fortune.news.us

  Registration under these SLD would be managed by proper sector
specific associations, not open to anybody but just for members of
each sector.
  Domain names would start resembling as "business telephone
directories"
  This is a natural and easy way to make people find companies.

  I am proposing these under country TLD for some reasons:
    -There is enough room for this
    -There is no conflict with geographic based domain tree
    -It's easier to organize coherent sectors within a country
     than globally.

For those countries facing problems with overcrouded TLD,
as US with its de facto .COM domain
and also Brazil with its .COM.BR domain,
creation of this sector specific grouping would help
taking away from Internet registration most conflicts,
and make its solution a sector specific problem, self 
regulated.

For international gTLD one additional point is that it's more
difficult to have homogenious sector associations,
except for some very integrated sectors, like airlines,
global presence multinational industrial groups, travel, 
entertainment, ..., maybe banks. 
Sectors that use to act worlwide.

In these cases it would be fine to add these world regulated
sectors as new top level domain, under wich 
companies would have their "meaningful" domain.

Like having TLD's like .air, .global, .bank, etc
And domains like   varig.air  united.air  aerolineas.air 
                   (Only aviation related companies allowed)

                   ibm.global microsoft.global shell.global
                   (Only global companies, with presence in
                    several countries and correspoding registered 
                    trademarks)

                   citybank.bank   hsbc.bank  safra.bank bradesco.bank
                    (Only banks allowed)    

I also do like another concept that is the use of alternative 
domains resolving to the same hosting server.

In examples above, citybank.bank domain migth get resolved to
the regular pre-existing citybank.com site.
Like alias of a same site.

Or alias of specific pages of a site.
Like having citybank.bank.us going to US operations page 
in citybank.com.

Please note that central registration would be necessary just for
the group domain, like .air or .bank.

Registration under these top level domain would be handled by
specific sector association, not subject to centrally stablished 
rules and fees.
Each sector might have its own politics for registratin under
its delegated sector-TLD.


To finalize, using the same domain aliasing concept, 
we open space for surprisingly new and functional TLD's.

I've called them sTLD , for standard TLD.
A TLD would be a sTLD if its domains match with a 
widely accepted standard.
Examples range from EAN codes, companies telephone numbers,
airlines designators, stock exchange tickers, etc
IRS companies' numbers, ISBN, ISSN, ISRC, etc

For each, it is possible to correspond a sTLD, such as
.EAN, .TEL (or .i), .AIR, .NYSE.us, .IRS.us, etc

More detailed discussion about 
sTLD (Standard Top Level Domains)
is found at

http://www.gtld-mou.org/notice-97-02/0004.html
sTLD: A New Concept (Standard TLDs, externally managed)

Benjamin Azevedo





> Tim Beckham
> 
> Website America, Inc.     ph 215-233-4660
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