RE: [wg-c] Geographically allocated names

[john.c.lewis@bt.com]

Is there any logic to regionally assigning generic TLDs which can represent
global interests ?

Surely the principle should be to determine generic dimensions which are not
restricted to national or regional cultural boundaries? These should be
intuitively accessible.

Regards

John C Lewis
Manager - International Organisations Europe
BT delegate ETNO Executive Board
BT delegate EURODATA Foundation Board
Tel: +44 (0) 1442 295258 Mob: +44 (0) 802 218271
Fax: +44 (0) 1442 295861

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Milton Mueller [SMTP:mueller@syr.edu]
> Sent:	18 July 1999 16:41
> To:	wg-c@dnso.org; apple
> Subject:	[wg-c] Geographically allocated names
> 
> One way to give the creation of new TLDs a more international flavor
> is to use the world regions to allow registries from each region to
> define and operate a certain number of names.
> 
> For example, North America would be given 20 gTLDs that would be based
> on English.
> 
> Europe would be given 20 gTLDs based on French, German, Spanish, and
> perhaps even one or two that were specifically British-English in
> flavor. At any rate, the Europeans themselves would get to work it
> out.
> 
> Asia is a complex, polycultural area (of course, all regions are, but
> even more so here), so we might want to reserve 40 gTLDs for their
> selection. I know that some people in Singapore are working on a
> standard to allow use of Chinese characters in domain names. Similar
> developments may eventually occur in Korea and Japan, which both have
> different alphabets.
> 
> Africa should get 20 gTLDs. Probably a separate section should be also
> created for the Middle East.
> 
> Latin America/Caribbean should also get 20 gTLDs.
> 
> The point, which is really brought home by looking at the list of TLDs
> provided by name.space, is that names are cultural artifacts. A gTLD
> such as ".jam" or ".zone" would be cool in NYC and California but
> useless or possibly even offensive in Egypt. There is no way that a
> set of gTLDs selected by one central committee for the whole world can
> reflect the diversity of the Internet or resonate with users all over
> the world.
> 
> Working Group C should propose a procedure and a timetable for
> allowing the world's regions to establish their own gTLDs. I suspect
> that in North America and Europe, where the issues have been hashed
> over, things would move quickly and in the rest of the world they
> would move more slowly, so I do not think this proposal would
> significantly delay the process of introducing new tlds.
> 
>