Circleid: By George Sadowsky
Within the next year, the ICANN Board may well face a decision that will help determine whether ICANN is capable of serving the global public interest or whether it is degenerating into an industry-controlled self-regulatory association. The issue can be framed quite simply: will ICANN approve a process for the creation of a new wave of new generic top level domains that will include "closed generic" gTLDs?
The issue can be semantically confusing since the word 'generic' is used in two different senses. There are at present about 1200 gTLDs, or generic top level domains that are recognized by the DNS. Each of these gTLDs are operated by a registry under contract with ICANN. Most of these gTLDs are 'open,' which means that anyone who subscribes to the requirements of the registry and pays the subscription fee can establish a second level domain under the gTLD.
By "Closed Generics" I mean the situation in which the gTLD registry controls registration of all second level domains of the "generic name" of its business or industry. As an example, the new gTLD .book is an open generic gTLD, and anyone should be able to apply for a second level domain name registration under it. Alternatively, the registry may have a stated policy to restrict registration, but must allow domain names to be registered by all "similarly-situated" businesses or industries, e.g., all cloud companies in .cloud, all search industries in .search, and all bloggers in .blog.
read more (Circleid)
Within the next year, the ICANN Board may well face a decision that will help determine whether ICANN is capable of serving the global public interest or whether it is degenerating into an industry-controlled self-regulatory association. The issue can be framed quite simply: will ICANN approve a process for the creation of a new wave of new generic top level domains that will include "closed generic" gTLDs?
The issue can be semantically confusing since the word 'generic' is used in two different senses. There are at present about 1200 gTLDs, or generic top level domains that are recognized by the DNS. Each of these gTLDs are operated by a registry under contract with ICANN. Most of these gTLDs are 'open,' which means that anyone who subscribes to the requirements of the registry and pays the subscription fee can establish a second level domain under the gTLD.
By "Closed Generics" I mean the situation in which the gTLD registry controls registration of all second level domains of the "generic name" of its business or industry. As an example, the new gTLD .book is an open generic gTLD, and anyone should be able to apply for a second level domain name registration under it. Alternatively, the registry may have a stated policy to restrict registration, but must allow domain names to be registered by all "similarly-situated" businesses or industries, e.g., all cloud companies in .cloud, all search industries in .search, and all bloggers in .blog.
read more (Circleid)
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