Re: [Gllug] [Sheflug] Re: [LBC] Slightly OT: Callnet0800

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <nospam [at] sk.tsukuba.ac.jp>]

>>>>> "Robert" == Robert J McKay <robert [at] mckay.com> writes:

    >> bit on .com domain names, since the Japanese government in its
    >> infinite wisdom decided that a company can have exactly one
    >> .co.jp domain name.  Thus it's "sony.co.jp" but
    >> "playstation.com"!

    Robert> Very smart.

Maybe.  If everybody plays that game.

But the economic incentives are against it.  All it takes is one
popular top-level domain that allows arbitrage.

    Robert> Too bad it's not done more often. The canadian domain
    Robert> (.ca) is also like that (sort of), but it'll probably all
    Robert> go the way of .com next year when they give the domain to
    Robert> a company to run.. :( (up until now .ca had been run by
    Robert> volunteers  [at]  UBC who inspect each and every application by
    Robert> hand and make sure that it's valid)

Yup.  I guess that's why University of British Columbia is UBC.EDU
_and_ UBC.CA.  Can't keep their own hands out of the cookie jar.  If
they've got UBC.EDU, why can't they leave UBC.CA for the University
Bookstore Cooperative of Canada, which would be an extremely deserving
non-profit if only it existed?  :-)

There really is _no_ fair solution.  There's nothing that can be done
about say TURNBULL.ORG; I can't get it, and I _don't_ like the way
it's run.  It _is_ owned by a Turnbull ... these conflicts of interest
are going to occur.  Eg, why shouldn't .CA be assigned to CALIFORNIA,
for heaven's sake?  It's much more wired, has higher GDP, and more
people than ALL of CANADA!  The skiing is just as good, surfing is
much better, it feeds more people, makes more wine, has more Nobel
prizewinners, has San Francisco, Yosemite, and Death Valley, more
permanent (doesn't have Quebec separatists), makes better movies
.. on any standard, it's more deserving, isn't it?

Now, .com _ought_ to be up for the highest bidder.  Money is the
appropriate way to settle those things in the commercial domain.
Maybe they should auction them off in the first place, I dunno.  But
first come, first serve, then use it or sell it for what you can get
or lose it, seems more appropriate to the Internet.

As for the other domains, I only wish it could be so simple.  (One
exception: the above Dave-Barry-style advocacy not withstanding, ISO
3166-1 is the obvious way to hand out 2 letter top-level domains.
Canada should keep .CA. :)

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