On Fri, 27 Jun 2008, Scott Francis wrote:
perhaps somebody with more insight can explain the rationale to me (DRC?) - is there a purpose served here aside from corporate/legal interests?
It strikes me as fomenting another gold rush. The notion that disputed TLDs go up for auction sounds like a request for a nice, high quality money printing device. I may have skimmed over it, but where does the money from these auctions go? At the risk of invoking Ron Paul, this will turn TLDs into a fiat currency, and devalue the rest of them. A small subset of people will profit, and everyone else loses.
Off the top of my head, I can see some high dollar fist fights breaking out for .sex, .porn, .games, .hotel, etc. It'll be like the .alt tree on usenet for people with money. There may also be an actual fist fight over TLDs like .irc, .leet, .goatse, and .krad. Maybe not .krad.
I agree with Scott, I'd rather see ICANN spend time on current problems instead of making new ones.
- billn
