Evan, Although I tend to agree with your general sentiment I disagree that the primary target are typed-URLs. One value of a domain is an identifier for a business or activity, like a phone number or trade name. What would you put on an ad if not your domain along with name, phone number, etc.? Whether few transcribe that to a URL bar is not really the concern of ICANN, what if you were selling million-dollar sports cars? You're being too prescriptive. Either people buy domains or they don't, either the economics works for those involved or they don't*. Otherwise it's like someone, an industry regulator like ICANN, saying sorry we have enough flavors of ice cream we don't need more. On that note my feeling is that ICANN charges far too little for TLDs and this is why they flood the net with hundreds of new TLDs most of which are bound to become moribund and fail. It's become a high-level version of "domain tasting" if any remember that controversy. It encourages speculation in a product which should be providing trust and reliability. My off-hand guess is that new TLDs should cost over US$1M to start, maybe much more, with various considerations for the various "worthy causes" before someone goes there. * Criminality and abuse of the net aside, another area where new TLDs contribute but that hasn't been raised here, yet. -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: +1 617-STD-WRLD | 800-THE-WRLD The World: Since 1989 | A Public Information Utility | *oo*