At 08:39 PM 2/15/99 -0800, William X. Walsh wrote:
>
>On 16-Feb-99 Dr Eberhard W Lisse wrote:
>> > Oh, I agree with you entirely, unless, for instance, the chartering
>> > authority were to take care of that for you by, say, issuing valid PGP
keys
>> > before a domain application was even possible.
>>
>> I don't follow. How would verification of the sender allow automatic
>> determination of content?
>
>Say for example, that some international accrediting group for Penguin
Research
> Scientists issues a PGP encrypted coupon for a domain name in the
.penguin TLD
>to each of their members. They would have to submit this coupon along with
>their domain application to validate that they "belong" to this group and thus
>meet the charter.
That's a good idea.
>My problem with all of this is that we are limiting the use of a string to
>particular purpose. .penguin could also be used for other purposes, and to
>restrict the use of that string to a particular purpose ONLY basically strikes
>me badly.
NOW we go back up a few thousand feet to the primary question, do TLD
charters serve a purpose? In this specific context, will they help with the
TM vs DNS problem? Bill and Marty both say that they will. Personally, I
have always believed in making room for both chartered and unchartered
TLDs. However, the practical TM reality may make unchartered TLDs
vulnerable to a lot of TM litigation induced churn. A functioning charter
may actually help protect the TLD members from this. Since this favours
stability it may be a good thing.
What would be interesting to note is whether TM litigation rates went up
when NSI stopped enforcing the existing charters.
>I've yet to see an example of it that isn't wrought with problems. Someone
>said .doctor be administer by the AMA, but they means that other "doctors" who
>are not medical doctors are deprived of the use of a string that also
>identifies them. Now, say we had .doctor, we could delegate md.doctor to the
>AMA and they could then issue names as they please.
>
>Even .EDU has real issues surrounding its use. 2 year degree granting
>institutions cannot register names, neither can other educational institutions
>that are not 4 year degree granting. But someone decided that .edu should
only
>represent 4 year degree institutes.
>
>Does that unfairly limit the ability of others who could make good use of that
>string?
The scenario you are discussing here is, in reality, a very badly formed
charter, with a TLD that is managed very poorly and without forethought. I
submit that this type of mis-management can not be regulated away. Someone
will find some other way to make a boneheaded move. Please rest assured of
that. It also gets to the implementation question of who approves TLD
charters. It is a question expressly avoided until now.
___________________________________________________
Roeland M.J. Meyer -
e-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Internet phone: hawk.lvrmr.mhsc.com
Personal web pages: http://staff.mhsc.com/~rmeyer
Company web-site: http://www.mhsc.com
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