No Such Weblog

Dave Winer and Bret Fausett are both talking about .blog as one response to Stuart Lynn's new gTLD action plan. Quite frankly, it's the first new gTLD idea which immediately appears to be useful to me - provided that the eventual proponents don't give in to the temptation of tying it to any specific technology or application service provider. Please keep the intelligence as closely at the edges as possible. Keep away from expensive centralized services.

While we are on it, here are some policy issues a proposal may have to address - possibly with some new thinking, since .blog would be a TLD mostly dedicated to (even non-commercial) free speech: (1) How do you handle trademark protection and name reservations? ICANN.blog should, as a name, be available - just like, say, mcdonalds.blog. (2) Is the traditional WHOIS policy appropriate? Of course, there's much more to think about. In particular: What (or who) qualifies for a regisration under .blog?

In ICANN's current registry and sponsorship contracts, the names of TLDs are reserved as SLDs. This practice may be intended to help avoid confusion (and to address an old security problem documented in RFC 1535). Additionally, names like dnso.museum or icann.aero are reserved. While these specific ones certainly have some merit, it seems like a gross exaggeration to hard-wire them into a sponsorship agreement.

Conclusion: The reservations may be one of those ICANN practices which should be subject to re-evaluation.