My use of geographical locality was primarily a way to reduce scarcity. That being said, you are right in that many entities that seek domain names are not geographically locked. However, I would argue that the vast majority of companies are not globally active and are geographically tied to legal company entities and local laws.
The secondary problem here, which is more in tune with the original article, is that the US government "assumes" ownership and control of generic TLDs as a God given right. They assume legal control and can arbitrarily decide to close generic domains when the activities of that domain "contravenes" US law (or more often than not, simply annoys powerful lobbying groups).
That isn't right. I'm happy to see lots of generic TLDs being used rather than geographical ccTLDs, but just not in the hands of one country. Country TLDs solve those legal issues as well. Generic TLDs are governed by a country that has very specific ideas, pressure groups, and powerful companies, acting (often) out of sync with the rest of the world.
"The secondary problem here, which is more in tune with the original article, is that the US government "assumes" ownership and control of generic TLDs as a God given right."
Well, they did create the whole system (or funded it, at least).
"I'm happy to see lots of generic TLDs being used rather than geographical ccTLDs, but just not in the hands of one country."
There's nothing to prevent the creation of new TLDs managed however you want (and in fact quite a few have been so created). It's a hassle, and expensive, but that just strengthens the point. The U.S. government (and its fundees) went through the hassle and expense of creating .com, .edu, and the others (and indeed the Internet itself). Why do you feel that others have some sort of moral right to chunks of those namespaces?
Comments
My use of geographical locality was primarily a way to reduce scarcity. That being said, you are right in that many entities that seek domain names are not geographically locked. However, I would argue that the vast majority of companies are not globally active and are geographically tied to legal company entities and local laws.
The secondary problem here, which is more in tune with the original article, is that the US government "assumes" ownership and control of generic TLDs as a God given right. They assume legal control and can arbitrarily decide to close generic domains when the activities of that domain "contravenes" US law (or more often than not, simply annoys powerful lobbying groups).
That isn't right. I'm happy to see lots of generic TLDs being used rather than geographical ccTLDs, but just not in the hands of one country. Country TLDs solve those legal issues as well. Generic TLDs are governed by a country that has very specific ideas, pressure groups, and powerful companies, acting (often) out of sync with the rest of the world.
"The secondary problem here, which is more in tune with the original article, is that the US government "assumes" ownership and control of generic TLDs as a God given right."
Well, they did create the whole system (or funded it, at least).
"I'm happy to see lots of generic TLDs being used rather than geographical ccTLDs, but just not in the hands of one country."
There's nothing to prevent the creation of new TLDs managed however you want (and in fact quite a few have been so created). It's a hassle, and expensive, but that just strengthens the point. The U.S. government (and its fundees) went through the hassle and expense of creating .com, .edu, and the others (and indeed the Internet itself). Why do you feel that others have some sort of moral right to chunks of those namespaces?
Here's a list of the ones that are under review right now:
http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/application-resu...