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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">I stand ready to be educated by those with different views.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">OK. Here is a different view.
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">It is not a free speech issue at all. It is a vertical integration or business model issue, exclusively. Some registries want to create a specific image or
environment inside a particular TLD. Those registries are not trying to sell domain name registrations per se, they are selling or doing other things with the domain, perhaps even giving domains away to promote a service. They might also use their authority
to control registrations to prevent speculators from grabbing all the "good" names, or to impose a taxonomy on the second level, or to prevent undesirable types from squatting or tarnishing the overall image of the domain.
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Other registries want to maximize the number of registrations under a TLD. In that case, it makes sense to be "open". In other words, if you are a registrar
and want to sell hundreds of thousands or millions of domains to whoever will buy them for whatever reason, then you want "open" or FCFS TLDs.
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Not surprisingly, the real push for "open" and against "closed" TLDs is coming from traditional registrars who want all the potentially popular domains to be
available for them to exploit as registrars. The free speech and competition policy claims are pure diversions.
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Take .BOOK for example. If someone wants to open that up for anyone on a first-come, first-served basis, there are advantages and disadvantages. Sure, I could
register networksandstates.book in an open domain, if I wanted to. But someone else might register it before me, or someone might register nonfiction.books (so there's that "terrible" appropriation of a generic term again). Wrose, 600 different link farms
might appropriate other generic terms (sex.books, good.books) and just pile pay per click ads onto them, so that anyone using the domain would never know whether a specific domain was useful or just a commercial diversion.
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">I don't think it's ICANN's job to say that either one of these business models is the right one. I think there is an important place for both models, and the
proper decision maker to decide which one to use is the person who risked about $1 million to get the domain and operate it.
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">The competition policy claims are especially laughable, because unless you confuse the market for books with the market for names under .book, it is obvious
that possession of the latter does not do anything to give you monopoly control of the former.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Likewise, I don't see the freedom issue here. In fact, freedom of expression and property rights are mutually reinforcing in this case. If I register a domain
like .IGP and want to use it to push a particular topic or point of view, it's my right NOT to allow, say, advocates of Scientology to register domains under IGP. If I have to lend my domain to promotion of causes and ideas I don't support, my freedom of association
and expression rights are being restricted. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Edward, you have a domain under USC.EDU. USC is not obliged, on free speech grounds, to allow me to register a name under their domain. This is not a restriction
of my right of free speech so much as it is an extension of USC's right of free association and free speech. There are plenty of domains to accommodate diverse views.
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Generic words in the SLD space have been registered - and restricted to what their owners want them to do - for more than a decade. I don't see how TLD vs SLD
changes the issue in any relevant way. Would you contend that your right to freedom of expression is restricted because you can't register <foo>.book.com? If not, why is it a restriction to not be allowed to register <foo>.book? I think we would both probably
agree that if someone else registers book.com before me, then I don't have any right to use the domain book.com. Why is it any different for .book?
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Remember, new domains are NOT .com; i.e., they have no monopoly power or lock in power on existing registrants. No one has to use them or register in them.
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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