[registrars] RE: Issue with the "Initial Report on new gTLDs"

[Bruce Tonkin]

Hello Bhavin, 

Great to see some well thought out feedback on the draft
recommendations.
 
With respect to "clearly differentiated domain name space"
 
I want to test this with some examples.  From my point of view, in
addition to competition, we also need to think about user experience.
 
So for me, I think that .ifno as a deliberate misspelling for .info is
not a good idea.  It may be OK if ifno clearly meant something to people
registering in that space, and the operator made an effort to ensure
that registrations were not just attempt to mislead Internet users (ie
clearly differentiated).

But .brochure as an alternative for .info, or .web as an alternative for
.com would be fine.  I don't think users would be confused by those
strings.

So for me it is a matter of degree, I think the current wording is
probably too restrictive.  There are some in the GNSO that don't want
many new TLDs - so the more restrictive the better.  The two extremes in
the debate are currently - no new gTLDs unless you can prove somehow in
advance that the TLD will be really successful and really wanted by
people etc, and as many TLDs as will work - ie open slather like .com in
the TLD space.  The current wording is a bit of a compromise between the
extremes.  It is interesting to note that many cctlds have decided in
recent years to open up registrations at the top level for the TLD (e.g
.us, .cn etc), and essentially collapse the DNS hierarchy.

Speaking personally, I think the concept of avoiding confusion is
reasonable, but the current wording appears to be too far towards
avoiding competition.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin