As a member of the Commercial and Business Users' Constituency, I support the comments filed by that group.

But as a small business person, I feel there are some points that are both more central to my sector of the Internet economy and important enough that I am filing this individual comment on the release of O.Com.

First, it is often hard for a company to plow new ground. I have been doing it for 10 years and it seems I have at least 10 more to go. The effort and evidence of my business-building is always in jeopardy of being undercut by someone with deeper pockets and wider reach.

That why I believe it is, as they say at Mass on Sunday, “truly right and just” to take not just prior rights, but prior use & market investment into account in awarding all single-letter second-level domain names.

To do so also inoculates ICANN against potential failure.

Second, too few times does ICANN have the chance to test a hypothesis. As with the new gTLD program, it is often an all-or-nothing policy decision.

In the case of O.com, ICANN has the chance to view the availability of the domain name as a grand experiment; getting to learn from its release so as to better shape those in the future.

I realize that other registries have released single-letter domain names, but, in terms of market power and potential, none match .com. For this reason, special care should be taken.

Finally, while I am grateful that Verisign has agreed not to benefit from the O.com auction proceeds, I am uneasy about whether any of these funds might find their way into ICANN's operating budget.

Best would be for the funds (which we anticipate but cannot guarantee) to be used to support the organizations who ought to be involved in ICANN -- or involved more!

So there it is. My view is that, as in the U.S. Patent Office, prior art ought to count, that the auction be viewed as a test of our assumptions, not their roll-out and the benefits go to those who can most benefit ICANN by doing their work not just at three meetings but all year.

John Berard Credible Context Sent from my iPhone