what problem are we solving? (was Re: ICANN opens up Pandora's Box of new TLDs)

[darkuncle at gmail.com (Scott Francis)]

On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 11:06 AM,  <Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu> wrote:
> On Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:24:48 PDT, Scott Francis said:
>
>> serve to increase complexity and add additional confusion to a system
>> that the standard user has just now come to grips with
>> ("www.company.com will get me Company's official, legitimate page").
>
> Funny you should say that. :)
>
> On my way back from lunch, I heard an ad on the radio for a company in
> town that said: "or visit blueridgerealestate.org".
>
> Yep. dot-org, because the dot-com variant is owned by another company
> some 50 miles from here.
>
> And doing a 'whois' on both shows that "company" didn't get "company.com"
> because somebody else snagged it first.  So it's a crap shoot regarding
> whether the .com gets you the "official legitimate page"...

that's exactly my point! it's _not_ reliable, but it's the behavior
that the average user has come to expect. If we can't even guarantee
reliability with the small handful of TLDs currently in use, when we
start introducing arbitrary new ones to anybody that can pay, I'm
concerned that it's going to make user support even more of a headache
(for those of us unfortunate enough to be involved in that role,
professionally or personally :))
-- 
darkuncle@{gmail.com,darkuncle.net} || 0x5537F527
 http://darkuncle.net/pubkey.asc for public key