[ICANN-EU] Re: Re: Personal Online Domains (PODS) and ICANN Equivalents Explained

["JIM FLEMING" <jfleming@anet.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Rick Harris <RHARRIS1@BCONNEX.NET>
To: <DOMAIN-POLICY@LISTS.NETSOL.COM>
Sent: Sunday, November 12, 2000 2:04 PM
Subject: Re: Personal Online Domains (PODS) and ICANN Equivalents Explained


> Re: Personal Online Domains (PODS) and ICANN Equivalents Explained
>
> I have received several requests for more information about personal
online
> domains. I have also received a thoughtful public "and" private request
from
> Jim Fleming. I will reply privately to Jim on this matter. The purpose of
> this missive is to describe however briefly some  - but not all - the
> thinking behind "personal online domains" - or PODS. The models that show
> exactly how and why PODS are doable as equivalent TLDs (eTLDs)are not
> discussed here. Detailed information about PODS is available - as I said
in
> previous memos - by requesting it off list.
>

Thanks for the well-written contribution. I think we are in general
agreement
on many matters except maybe the myth about ICANN creating "competition"
in the Domain Name Industry. What actually happened was that the U.S.
Government
forced NSI to divide into a Registry and Registrar business with the
Registry
then subjected to price regulations ($6/year) and the Registrar was then
forced
to be "accredited" along with other registrars by ICANN, whom the U.S.
Government
appointed.

The same effect could have been acheived with a lot less cost and energy
if the U.S. Government had simply forced NSI to lower their price to $6.
NSI already had thousands of ISPs and Web developers acting as Registrars.
With a drastic cost reduction of the wholesale cost of names, those
Registrars
would have lowered their fees (giving people the feeling that more
competition
exists...which was always there). IF the U.S. Government had selected that
path, there would have not been any need for ICANN, because Registrars
(ISPs, Web developers, etc.) were already in place. They did not need to
have
an ICANN Good-House-Keeping Seal of Approval. Also, IF the U.S.
Government had forced NSI to lower their fees to $6, then there would not
have been an easy path for NSI to ALSO remain as a Registrar. Therefore,
it was in ICANN's best interet and NSI's best interest (and not the best
interest of ISPs and web developers) to create the illusion of competition
by forcing an NSI Registry-Registrar structure, with ICANN brokering it all.

Without having seen the PODS information, it sounds to me like PODS
may be similar to DLDs (i.e. Dash-Level Domains). Given the U.S.
Government's
restructuring of NSI and their price regulations on .COM (at $6/year), it
becomes obvious that people can build a new name space upon that base
without having to add new Top-Level-Domains (TLDs). The most consistent,
and explicit way to do this is by using the only punctuation-like character
available, the DASH (or hyphen). With DLDs and the .COM assumed
extension, everyone can select ANY DLD and they then are VOTING in
a democratic manner about what they want the name space to be. Here are
the results of their votes:

> 37187 ONLINE
> 15755 INC
> 14787 NET
> 11783 USA
> 9455 E
> 9432 UK
> 8657 WEB
> 8406 GROUP
> 7498 IT
> 7175 DESIGN
> 6935 SHOP
> 6268 TECH
> 6260 WORLD
> 6017 SOLUTIONS
> 5726 US
> 5617 SERVICES
> 5607 LINE
> 5331 TV
> 5212 CONSULTING
> 5188 1
> 5003 INTERNATIONAL

The above are only those DLDs with more than 5,000 registrations.
In order to make the Top 2,048 DLDs 153 were required. A year ago
only 45 registrations were required. The DLDs people are selecting do
not change that much over the years relative to each other.

Now that full support for the above DLDs is being added in the way
of TLD servers, some of the DLDs above will enjoy a boost. ONLINE
is a good example of this. That DLD has tripled in use where INC (which
used to be #1) has only doubled in use. The 37,000+ people and
companies with ONLINE names appear to be pulling away from the
pack. If one assumes that there will always be a -ONLINE.COM
tracking-name for every .ONLINE name, then it is easy to continue to
follow the growth of .ONLINE. If instead, the ONLINE Community
decides to move from the DLD names to the TLD equivalents, then
the registrations in -ONLINE.COM will likely taper off. In either case,
the 37,000+ names grandfathered into the .ONLINE zone, allow for
the TLD registry to get past the first-day start-up problems and it allows
for people to establish their prior-use rights, before the TLD is widely
used.

Other DLDs are listed here...
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/130dftmail/unir.txt


Jim Fleming
http://www.unir.com/images/architech.gif
http://www.unir.com/images/address.gif
http://www.unir.com/images/headers.gif
http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/sdks/platform/tpipv6/start.asp