Re: Competition; was Re: [Membership] ICANN: The Issue of Membership---

[Greg Skinner <gds@best.com>]

Michael Sondow wrote:

>There may be a short period of reduced initial costs for domain names
>if the registrars (and registries?) become de-centralized. But if the
>new ones are run strictly as businesses whose bottom line is all that
>matters to them, they'll soon find ways of jacking up the price. I've
>already heard arguments that individuals shouldn't get SLDs, since
>they can get email and webservices without them, and that SLDs should
>be reserved for businesses and organizations. This means "businesses
>and organizations who can pay well for them". [...]

If I might clarify a point I made on the ifwp list recently, I am not
opposed to individuals getting SLDs, or even *TLDs*, when there is a
much better functioning policy and technology infrastructure than what
we have today.  I have suggested that individuals be encouraged to
register within the infrastructure of their ISP, or some other
(sub)domain that is set up to handle individual registrations, in the
interim.

--gregbo