As far as I can tell, the entire purpose for creating ICANN was to prevent the creation of useful new TLD's. If you look at the processes and forces involved in the creation of ICANN, they all have a huge stake in trademark protection. The more TLDs you have, the more places you have to sue to "protect" your trademark. This recent non-event in which ICANN deigned to approve a few useless TLDs is, to me, just more evidence that ICANN exists to protect trademark holders and not to support the Internet.
The only way past ICANN is to go around it. Five years ago, alternative roots were nut-case fringe things. Now I think they are the only choice to keep the Internet moving in the right direction.
Slashdot Mirror
As far as I can tell, the entire purpose for creating ICANN was to prevent the creation of useful new TLD's. If you look at the processes and forces involved in the creation of ICANN, they all have a huge stake in trademark protection. The more TLDs you have, the more places you have to sue to "protect" your trademark. This recent non-event in which ICANN deigned to approve a few useless TLDs is, to me, just more evidence that ICANN exists to protect trademark holders and not to support the Internet. The only way past ICANN is to go around it. Five years ago, alternative roots were nut-case fringe things. Now I think they are the only choice to keep the Internet moving in the right direction.