[registrars] Status report on single letter domain names

[John Berryhill]

>Once there is a policy position with respect to new gtlds going forward,
>we can then consider the implications of that for existing gtlds, and
>whether some special allocation method is required.

Of course, the new gtlds have restrictions which would have interesting
implications if applied retroactively.

AFAIK, the new gtlds were required to reserve any pre-exising TLD from
registration - e.g. com.info is reserved.  The reasoning was a reaction to
such outfits as Centralnic, which sells 3LDs in <country-code>.com domains
(e.g. <name>.uk.com).  At one point in time, an un-named trademark attorney
with apparently good connections had gotten his or her knickers twisted over
whether the UDRP did, or did not, apply to Centralnic's 3LD registrations.

References here: 

http://www.whois.sc/news/2002-12/udrp-wipo.html

http://www.biglist.com/lists/lists.inta.org/tmtopics/archives/0212/msg00024.
html

So, in order to prevent registration of "confusingly similar" 3LD's beyond
the grasp of ICANN policies, those in a position of more power than
understanding of how the DNS actually works, managed to slip the "no other
TLD-like things as a 2LD in a new TLD" rule into all new registry contracts.

The upshot is "info.com good, com.info bad.  Museum.com good, com.museum
bad.  Etc.".

The point, if you haven't gotten it by now, is that if you start applying
new TLD policies retroactively to existing TLD's, then dimes will get you
donuts that the evil genius responsible for this nonsense will rise from his
or her grave in the IPC and once again stalk the .com zone along with an
army of INTA zombies.

Of course, anyone interested in TLD charters should have a look at tpc.int,
and should also review the plotline of the James Coburn movie "The
President's Analyst".  Tpc.int is the only international organization on the
planet whose technical contact is a fictional character from a movie.  By
all means, let's have more rules to ignore.