Comments on: New Life for .XXX — but Hurdles Remain

By: Matthew Diehl

Matthew Diehl — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:35:12 +0000

Andrew – good point on the bottleneck that could be created by the registrars boycotting or having a reservation in offering domains on adult or “bad” TLDs. It is also beneficial to point out that similar bottlenecks could be implemented by ISPs or browser companies. ISPs could choose not to update their DNS systems to resolve domains that end in .killthepresident (for example) or non-open source browsers can reject that as a valid domain.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:59:40 +0000

Just thought of something else. Even if someone gets a controversial TLD, they’ll have to convince registrars to offer it to customers. That’s not likely if it’s controversial.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:46:21 +0000

jp – good point. ICANN probably doesn’t want the publicity of it though. Right now if someone registers a “bad” domain like that, news articles callout the registrar about it. If it’s a TLD, they’ll call out ICANN.

By: jp

jp — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:29:37 +0000

All things being equal, they should allow any extension. So what you can register killthepresident.com, but not a tld .killthepresident? Thus the uniquely democratic nature of the internet right? Is this one of those times where adding regulation is bad, or good?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:27:08 +0000

Michael, presumably the draft will be refined before people apply. But yes, they need to include this specific issue before application fees are collected.

By: Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:13:14 +0000

Andrew

Here’s the problem.

ICANN should take a public position on this now.

Otherwise you are going to have companies putting up $185K application fees, non-refundable.

If no “adult” extension are going to be approved based on moral grounds, ICANN needs to state so now.