Hundreds of New TLDs Coming — Question Is When

netbuzz writes "A controversial plan to introduce hundreds of new top-level domains could be headed for the fast track to implementation or something more akin to the back burner, depending on what ICANN makes of public comments due to close at the end of this month. At most immediate issue is whether the process of granting these new TLDs will feature a pre-registration process that proponents say is necessary to accurately gauge the depth of interest and skeptics fear as moving too fast too soon. Says one critic: 'In effect, it's like ICANN saying we don't know what route this race is going to take or the shape of the track, but we're going to fire the starting gun anyway.'"

Comments

purpose ?

[Tom]

To me, the major issue appears to be that ICANN doesn't have a clear vision on what the purpose of TLD is.

In the past, we had two types of TLDs: One for geographical/political designation (country TLDs) and one for organisation-type designation (.com/.net/.org/.mil/.edu).

The ones they added, and which I think everyone agrees were utterly stupid, are a mix of lobby-dumbness and content designation (.info, .pro, .aero)

What we need is a clear view on what the meaning of the TLD should be. But since we don't get that, because ICANN doesn't have a vision at all, we'll end up with a mess of crap, no matter which way they turn.