I'd like to make a suggestion here which seems to have evaded the majority. All the talk about top level domains is missing some FACTS - and FACTS are important. 1) FACT - as dot.com has shown the world, it is possible to incorporate the english dictionary into the domain space. This is a technical FACT. The domain name system can also support other language dictionaries, including non-english alaphabets (international domain names). 2) FACT - the sole purpose of domain names is to assist users in navigating the net. At this time a domain name which looks something like this; http://loveyou.com/ or http://iwantmymommy.com could be represented as: http://love.you/ http://i.want.my.mommy/ Which one looks better - which one would be easier to use? That's a matter of choice. A user choice. Unfortunately ICANN is against user choice. 3) FACT - ICANN is not the only game in town, others run root servers and ICANN can lose it's control of the root to others, which has already happened - examples; http://www.open-rsc.org/ http://www.superroot.net/ http://www.tinc-org.com/ http://name.space.xs2.net/ http://www.irsc.ah.net/ http://www.tldns.com/ With these FACTS in hand we can conclude that the domain name system is capable of supporting natural language - so in principle a user does not need to be restricted to a limited namespace. URL's can be setup in much the same way as we use natural language. That is a technical FACT. We can also conclude that if ICANN refuses .union, there are other options and maybe those should be explored. I suggest that the operators of .union - or any other tld operator take the time to pursue ICANN for listing - but it would be prudent to setup the registry operations now and list it with an alternate root server authorities instead of waiting for the holy blessing of mother ICANN. Regards Joe Baptista