An item for the geeks in the audience;
My coverage of ICANN began with my attempt to report on what seemed a relatively straightforward story at the intersection of my interests in travel, the Internet, and consumer advocacy: the creation under ICANN's supervision of top-level Internet domain names (TLD's) restricted to the travel industry: ".aero" (for air transportation) and "travel" (originally proposed by the airline cartel IATA, but eventually approved for a wider range of the travel "industry", although still to the exclusion of travellers).The issues for travellers, and the public interest, remain as significant (if subtle, because almost no one is actually using ".aero" or ".travel" yet) as ever. While keeping top-level domains artificially scarce to enhance their value to the handful of companies given the franchise to control them, ICANN is allocating a huge proportion of this limited Internet "namespace" for the exclusive use of the industry that sells travel-related services -- and is equating that "industry" with the entire concept of "travel". What should be a public commons is being captured by corporate interests, travel is being reduced to the purchase of services, and travellers and the rest of the public are being reduced to "consumers". ".Aero" and "travel" are the first industry-specific TLD's, making travel the test case of the corporate enclosure of this virtual commons.
"... .travel domain names for businesses in the travel "industry" are scheduled to go live beginning next Monday, 3 October 2005, despite my pending request for independent review of the (secret) manner in which ICANN approved ".travel" and delegated control of it to an insolvent sham front corporation, and my request for a stay of the ".travel launch while my request for independent review is pending..."
His main page is here.
Posted by Kate at February 17, 2006 12:41 AMTrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/3527
Briefly o/t: Last paragraph, the phrase, "Tricky Dick"... there's a NASCAR race car driver named Dick Trickle... just FYI. Funny name... even when he's last, sports reporters just cannot resist mentioning how he did...
Posted by: Canadian Sentinel at February 17, 2006 3:53 AMIf ICANN insists on shady practices, can government control be far behind?
Posted by: potato at February 17, 2006 7:27 AMI sent the following email to info@tralliance.travel
A number of us in the blogosphere are a bit concerned about the .travel TLD. We see the internet as a public space in which large organizations and individuals are on the same level playing field. The .travel TLD seems like the beginning of a divergence of that ideal.
We're currently discussing this on www.smalldeadanimals.com one of Canada's premier political blogs. Feel free to pop by and leave us a comment or respond to this email and I'll pass it on.
Barring an intelligenct justification for .travel I'll be boycotting it and encouraging others to do the same.
Regards
Jose
- I'll let you know if I hear something back.
Posted by: Jose at February 17, 2006 10:22 AMWhere were you guys when the last 37 TLDs and country code TLDs were implemented?
I was working in the domain registration business. Let's keep in mind that while we see statements like "ICANN controls TLDs" that companies like "Afilias" control TLDs like .info. The control is distributed.
Now, what do ye all have to say about putting the adult domains into the red light district TLD known as *.xxx ? Why pick on .travel? I'm not familiar with thie particular situation.
I think the entire thing is fluffy because we've proven in the last 7 years that the general public thinks that the Internet IS .com and even search engines like Google penalize TLDs like .biz.
I can't follow the whole issue of .travel, and I may be missing the whole point on THAT particular TLD, but in general I have no problem with segregating domains based on their TLD. Remember, there was a time when .ORG and .NET could only be registered to companies who met the requirements, and even .MIL and .EDU still follow those rules. Some new domains like .JOBS, .US and even .CA have requirements for registration.
My 2 cents...
Posted by: Altruistic at February 17, 2006 1:36 PMWeb site names don't really have a significant impact on the visibility of a site. Most visitors will arrive via a search engine or link. Although the assignment of the .aero or .travel domains may have the smell of vested interests, those interests won't be gaining any traction from their efforts. Of much greater concern is the ordering of Google search results. I’m not even that concerned about Google's influence. The second I come to the conclusion that Google's algorithms are not serving me, I’ll find an alternative. The Internet still seems to heavily favor the consumer in spite of pathetic attempts by those who believe they can shift the balance in favor of the big guys.
Posted by: Jim Broen at February 17, 2006 2:10 PMIt's not about the domain.
Read the links provided.
It's about the fact that ICANN doesn't follow their own rules.
Posted by: Ken Woods at February 18, 2006 6:49 AM