Why I believe 1 and 2 character domains should be allowed in .INFO

by | Feb 25, 2010 | ICANN, Jothan, Policy

I posted this to the ICANN comments. If you feel strongly one way or another about 1-2 character domains being released in .INFO, I encourage you to comment as well. Here is a link to the information on how to participate (deadline March 20, 2010).

I have been pleased to see the trend of the relaxation of restrictions, at the second level, of 1 and 2 character domains.

Afilias’ proposal to allocate 1 and 2 character .info domains looks prudent and responsible. The use of RFP / Proposal and other careful allocation plans that they have identified seem smart and well thought. I believe they should be allowed to do this.

Additionally, these domains can add benefit to the community through their use and responsible allocation, as presented.

Here are three reasons to allow 1 and 2 character domains to be released:

1] Six other gTLDs have had these restrictions lifted and have since began allocation of the names.
The TLDs are .BIZ, .CAT, .COOP, .MOBI,. NAME, and .PRO. There is no reason that .INFO should not be treated equally, given the method with which they intend to responsibly allocate these names.

Actually it is 7 but the .JOBS request wasn’t something I counted.

Essentially, though, ICANN has previously approved requests from 7 other gTLD registries related to 1-2 character domain names:

2] Restriction of single character domains in gTLDs in general is a concept worth evolving from.

The act of restricting single characters is a dated concept that was put in place as a placeholder, so that these would be available to horizontally expand the namespace at one point and do registrations at the third level in the gTLDS.

This plan and action never practically occurred. I understand the conceived plan was to have registrations happen under a.com, b.com, j.net at the third level to help move past the need to add new TLDs as quickly. Though a good concept in principle, the plan came after some legacy allocations had already happened of single character domains in com, net, and org (CNO).

Attempting such horizonal expansion would not be possible in an elegant manner with a portion of the single character domains allocated in CNO. Clawing these back from registrants to attempt horizontal expansion of the namespace is something that would be
sharply unwise. And thus the plan stalled. And this was many years ago.

We since have 2 (and god willing soon more) rounds releasing new TLDs.

Between the premise of the restrictions and why they were made and the introduction of new TLDs, the restriction on single character SLD is no longer practically justified.

While I respect that there was good intentions and a smart idea behind the ‘why’ of reserving these at the first level such restrictions would be made, it seems a fair time to let go of this restriction now that over a decade has passed without the plan being re-visited, and there have been solutions to the ‘problem’ it was intended to solve that have rendered this restriction worth a revisit.

3] The 2 character limit seems to be in place for ccTLD / ISO 3166-1 list(s)

This is a concept that is wise at the root level. With a four character TLD, there is very little if any likelihood that .INFO, 2 character names whois be confused with a ccTLD. For example, it seems to me unlikely that ie.info would be mistaken for a .ie domain name.

With respect to 2 character restrictions, these seem to also be a legacy restriction that is worth revisiting to determine if it is appropriate in general in new TLDs, but given that Afilias has identified a fairly responsible manner of allocation, the restriction seems to be worth eliminating in .info.

I see no reason not to approve lifting the 1-2 character restrictions, and I encourage the board to allow the release of these names.

Comments on Expressions of Interest in New TLDs

by | Jan 28, 2010 | ICANN

Thanks to those who took a moment to comment on the draft Expressions of Interest in new TLDs. If you’re unfamiliar with this, please read on.

Here is a link to the draft of the Expressions of Interest
Comments are listed here.

Some background:
Over a decade has passed since the formation of ICANN with the mandate to establish a process and get new Top Level Domains created to foster competition. New TLDs can offer a lot of benefit to consumers and internet users. They will compliment search as a means to get people to what they are looking for as resource pointers, and they will add semantic relevance to the email addresses and websites that they are used with.

Properly executed, the new TLDs can operate securely and ultimately deliver strong rankings in the search engines as we witness with .GOV or .EDU domains, where a user knows and trusts that the appearance of these TLDs in the results of a search on Yahoo!, Bing, or Google positively impact the overall psychology of the potential visitor so that they trust the relevance behind what their next click will bring.

Despite the promise and reward of new TLDs, there have been things to resolve. There have been proponents and opponents to the introductions of new TLDs, and there’s been a lot of evolution in the technologies, but the overall arguments have stayed the same. Existing registries and many of the attorneys from the Interbrand 100 brands seem to not want new TLDs and have woven tapestries to snare and slow the process of their introductions.

New applicants and groups, communities, and future users of the new TLDs are interested in ending a ten year stalemate in the introductions of new domains.

In the recent Seoul ICANN meeting last October, I had the privilege of speaking on behalf of many interested parties, communities, applicants, businesses, groups, and cities to propose the concept of an Expression of Interest in a new TLD that someone could file as an interested party.

The concept is simple… There had been a process under way to compile an Applicant Guidebook, currently in its third revision. There were a growing number of things to sort out as the drafting continued, and these drafts seem to continue well into this summer 2010. Meanwhile the delays are impacting a number of interested parties and their communities.

Taking an inspiration from a number of the registry service providers, we gathered in Seoul to come up with some ways to get the process under way of a very lightweight ‘Expression of Interest’ process for identifying what TLDs and who would apply for them, so that ICANN would be able to resource and staff accordingly. This could be done, if appropriately executed, in parallel with some of the outstanding issues that were being resolved as the Applicant Guidebook made its transition to becoming finalized.

The net product of that exercise, which took many sleepless nights, conference calls, and involvement from many different stakeholders, was the EoI proposal.

There has been a lot of careful thought put into the EoI, and it is something that the community and general internet users can benefit from.

Thanks again to those who took some time to comment on the Expressions of Interest in new TLDs. We set up the form to work so folks could voice whatever opinion they had.

Thanks for your time, and I appreciate you reading my blog.

-Jothan

Heading to Seoul for ICANN Meetings

by | Oct 19, 2009 | Feature, ICANN, Meetings

I am heading to Seoul, Korea shortly to attend and participate in the ICANN meetings, where new TLDs are the talk of the town. ICANN has made some major strides in the past year and I am certain that we will be seeing many good things in the coming year.

A few interviews, public forums, and board resolutions later there is an Expressions of Interest process in new TLDs.

Assimilating New TLDs into the marketplace

Assimilating New TLDs into the marketplace

by | Oct 14, 2008 | Feature, ICANN, NewTLDs, Speaking


I had the privilege to speak at the CENTR General Assembly in Pisa, to discuss the marketplace and how new TLDs can be assimilated into the marketplace via the registrar channel.

https://www.centr.org/main/lib/g1/4622-CTR.html

It may prove to be like taking a small sip from a fireplug with the number of applications coming, so potential applicants would benefit from taking a look at the presentation.