Bret Fausett wrote:
The idea that there are tiny language groups hanging around saying "oh, if only we had a TLD then we would do all sorts of Internet stuff" is rather implausible.
I'm not sure what you mean by "tiny language groups," but I had in mind languages like Chinese. I think John was referring to most of the entries at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.cym#Language_and_community
And in dismissing them he's serious, or attempting to write a gag for Saturday Night Live as the Ugly American? If serious then how sad, small minded and dumb.
In Paris I attended a reception staged by proponents of .bzh , and at the gala of the Cairo meeting I shared a table with the delegation pushing for .cym -- the points of view of both groups of TLD advocates were astoundingly similar.
Most non-Europeans would have to look them up to even know that .cym is for Welsh language culture and .bzh is for the Brittany area of France. The efforts are very real, and issues of pride and cultural survival appear to be overriding mundane concerns such as business models and long-term stability. There seems to be a sincere -- but ill-advised, IMO belief that a cultural TLD will offer a technology haven in which native-language and cultural websites will be able to flourish, or at least slow down assimilation.
In Paris you might also have heard Amadeu talking about the impact of .cat, massive increase in Catalan content. Copied his comments below. Dot cat at least seems to suggest less ill advised than you thought.
And I don't think anyone claims that TLDs enable Internet access or the creation of Internet content, but they may enable identity and branding and ease of communication, for IDNs. Such claims exist. Usually, as I've heard them, they take the form that a native TLD would facilitate the assertion of identity, at very least by making it easier to get relevant native-language domain names through explicit anti-squatter policies. As an example, consider that the Welsh word for "Wales" is "Cymru (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/cymru/), yet "cymru.com" (despite its Welsh dragon logo) points to an American IT security form and "cymru.org" is unused but owned (according to WHOIS data) by someone in Switzerland. There may be a feeling that cultural identity is being hijacked, without the trademark protections offered to commercial interests or the reserved phrases requested by governments.
Good you mention the BBC, creation of Welsh language television and radio channels led to a resurgence in the use of the Welsh. What had been a near dead language no longer is. No reason to think that . cym, .bzh might not have the same success online.
The feeling is real and in some cases justified. But this of course begs the question of whether the answer is creation of a TLD for every national cultural/linguistic minority. Most current efforts share the wishful thinking that their TLD will also be valued (and domain registrations purchased) by their respective diasporas (ie, North Americans of Welsh background).
I can't see any of these TLDs attracting more than a few thousand registrations and in some cases even that is optimistic.
So what? Go to the transcripts and listen to Amadeu's explanation of .cat - small number of names, a lot of new content. It's not our job to pre-judge business plans.
I almost wish that there was a single TLD, let's say ".nation" for instance, under which all of these could be placed.... maybe then there would be enough volume to sustain a stable TLD and reasonably priced domains.
So people who want to develop Welsh language content will find a home at the second level under the English word "nation". I'm sure you can see the attraction in that... But perhaps your right, find the cash and put in an application, but don't write a business plan that limit the rights of others to innovate.
The new gTLD plans make specific mention of these "cultural" TLDs; by encouraging and not dissuading their creation, arguably ICANN could be seen to be exploiting cultural pride in order to gain the revenue from the new registrations.
new TLDs may exist mostly to shake down existing registrants who'd want defensive registrations in new domains.
Every executive at a registry or prospective registry I know thinks defensive registrations are one of the worst things for their business, because they tie up quality names in the hands of people who don't use them or simply redirect them to the .COM. It is awful advertising for your namespace if most instances of it redirect to a .COM. Believe it or not, the goal is *not* to sell to the existing .COM registrants. If I am .WEB or .INFO or something, I'd much rather have the Idaho Butter Manufacturers actually use IBM.WEB than let International Business Machines register it defensively. The goal for some TLDs is to maximize revenue as a business model. They don't care who owns IBM.<tld> so long as it's taken. Of course, defensive registrations don't have to happen. Does IBM really need ibm.<everything>?
No. But even if it decides it does, what's the cost -- small % of any typical marketing campaign? The Internet provides opportunities and costs, IBM and other companies gain enormous benefits from the domain name system. Costs here seem minimal, they are businesses, let them seek opportunities. Adam (Amadeu's comment from Paris below.)
In the case of ccTLDs they may be seen like virtual branch offices, and there may be special purpose ones (like.mobi) make sense. But the trademark owners can do at least as much as registries to curb defensive registrations.
- Evan
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https://par.icann.org/files/paris/ParisWSNewgTLDS_23June08.txt
AMADEU ABRIL I ABRIL: Okay, I'm Amadeu Abril i Abril.
A disclaimer. I have not been working for dot cat for the last year and a half, so I am not just claiming my success at all. Now, I just wanted to show you some data. But as it's impossible to have a browser on the Web, we would need probably something like a technician or somebody who knows the Internet. Let me just explain that to you. You can do that at home. It's funny. Go to Google, and in the case, you put site, colon, dot cat, for instance. See how many results, how many pages are indexed by Google as belonging to dot cat domains. 9,400,000, something like that. It changes each hour, but over 9 million. Now do the same with all the other sTLDs or gTLDs, dot biz, whatever. You will be surprised. Now, do the next thing. Go to preferences, say, search in language Catalan. Do that for dot com, dot info, dot net, dot org -- sorry, dot org, not dot info -- and dot ES. The only ones over one million, dot EDU and dot info are the only ones close to half a million. All the rest are below one hundred thousand. The result is, since the appearance of dot cat two years ago, there are nearly double content in Catalan on the Internet. You know why? Because this filled up, people realized they have a place in the first division, not just in the second division. That special language. We're all bilingual in different languages. We all speak Catalan and Spanish or Catalan and French or Catalan and Italian, and sometimes some other languages. So, for these kind of communities, it's just an example, if you provide the right resource, managed the right way, this boosts contents, which is what the user wants. They don't want to buy domains. There's only 30,000 domains. But there's huge content, new content, in that language for people that like using their language. That's important. Then you can export that to real communities that exist offline. And they have a common life online. People tend to go to places that are -- you know, that use the languages they understand. I don't go very often to the, let's say, Korean district of the Internet, because I can't read a single word of Korean. It's my fault, I know. And I know that's much better than the things -- the places I go normally. But I cannot, because I don't speak this language. So there is an online community that uses that language and goes normally there. This one we should ask about trait branches or families or whatever. I'm not saying it's not. But is there a common life online that, you know, there's a purpose online that we serve not offline. Yes. Why not, then, go for it? It will work. Last thing. Dot cat only had 85 defensive registrations. Why? Tight control on pirates. There are some of them, but they're very marginal. Two UDRP cases, only one of them being a real cybersquatting, the other one being a contractual dispute with a terminated dealer that was also a licensee for the trademark. So it was not a clear case. So the question here is, this is just for minority languages, so on, but you can export that to many other communities, with (inaudible) or wherever, where there's a real interest in real common activities online, you will boost the content for these people. Okay? END