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ICANN, new TLDs, and Congress?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the the-battle-slogs-on dept.

itchyfish writes "Looks like the fight on TLDs is going to be a long one. It seems as though Congress is going to get involved. Could be a long, long time before any TLDs see the light of day."

6 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. It doesn't matter anyway... by algae · · Score: 5

    Frankly, I've stopped caring about the new top-level domains. Why? Because as things stand now, they won't make any difference to how DNS and name registration is run.

    At this point, we essentially have unlimited numbers of second-level domain names that might as well be top-level domains, because they're all followed by an irrelevant and arbitrary .com (or .net or .org). Unless there is going to be actual regulation by a multination organization with some clout over how the new TLDs are handed out, I don't see how they'll make any difference.

    To sum up: because there's no difference between .com, .net and .org anymore, we're essentially using unlimited TLDs followed by an arbitrary string. Unless the new TLDs are enforced in some way (which at this point I don't see happening), this isn't going to change. AOL/TW will promptly go out and buy aoltw.coop, aoltw.store and so forth.

    Unlimited TLDs aren't the answer, what we need are the equivalent of zoning laws.

    --
    Causation can cause correlation
  2. www.youcann.org by Sebby · · Score: 5
    www.youcann.org

    If this alternate system gets popular enough, all this will become irrelevant

    --

    AC comments get piped to /dev/null
  3. The American Government should have no influence by Lover's+Arrival,+The · · Score: 5
    Because TLD's are now international, not exclusively US'ian. It should be left to the UN to decide.

    America has the .us domain, and thats the one congress should have influence over, not the international TLD's. This is the sort of thing that gets America accused of cultural Imperialism.

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    --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The

  4. Wow, that much to apply??? by PureFiction · · Score: 5

    Does anyone else think the $50,000 application fee for a TLD to even be considered is enough for investigation?

    What the hell is ICANN doing that requires 50 G's to process an application???

    Perhaps their data entry personel are making $5,000,000 / hour...

  5. Let's aim that 747 their way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5

    Power up the laser, and say : "I think ICANN..." :o

  6. We see the wheels of government by alexhmit01 · · Score: 5

    Again, when the Internet was researchers e-mail and college kids playing, you can do whatever you want. Once you become integral to the economic prosperity, the government must oversee it. Why? Because private groups will not represent the public's interests.

    For a company that got put in control of the infrastructure, they are in a weird situation. The normal approach would be for ICANN to be an Executive Committee (i.e. appointed by the President), but they went with this quasi-public organization.

    This has advantages and disadvantages. It mostly shields the Internet from Presidential Politics (although Evans could get Commerce back involved), and gives it more leeway, but it forces Congress and the White House to take major steps if they want changes. This prevents micromanagement, but it means that if it doesn't like the direction, it can get involved.

    The wheels of government are slow but awesome. Perhaps we'll finally start realizing that government isn't obsolete, it still has the guns, and therefore rules.

    Alex