TLDs

Thu Apr 25 09:39:00 UTC 1996

>Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 14:55:39 +0300
>From: Hank Nussbacher <hank at ibm.net.il>
>Message-Id: <199604251155.OAA34257 at rex.ibm.net.il>
>To: nanog at merit.edu
>Subject: Re: TLDs
>Sender: owner-nanog at merit.edu
>Precedence: bulk
>
>Can we drop this TLD stuff?  There are serious legal questions
>on this entire matter.  For those who want to follow up on
>this see:
>http://www.law.georgetown.edu/lc/internic/domain1.html
>for the most comprehensive legal Web on the domain issue.
>
>There is even discussion for a solution:
>http://www.law.georgetown.edu/lc/internic/prob1.html
>
>Hank Nussbacher

I checked that website and it's all about issues of trademarks and domain
names conflicting... but that's only one facet of the entire 
"cluttered namespace" problem.  Other facets seem to be scalability, and 
just plain "what happens when the namespace is full? what then?".

IMHO, the perceived problem with cluttering the namespace is at least
fairly self-correcting - at some point (possibly already reached) .com 
will be basically filled (filled meaning having few or no desirable
domain names) so there will be grousing until some one with a 2nd lvl 
domain starts selling subnames... now it'll have to be a good 2nd lvl
domain to make any money, but deli.com, for instance, could sell
stans.deli.com, kosher.deli.com, etc... if it becomes common and easy to
do, then even people who don't sell domains as their main business
could do so upon request to generate a little extra revenue...

  --Paul