The sum is a typical one size fits all solution that obviously financially favors you know who... I was ccTLD for .sg before so I should know and for developing countries with a small user base relative to commercial operations, the cost of operations is very low. Such decisions coming from this organization doesn't surprise me any more. It is so so sadly predictable. One might speculate that one of the key emotions Jon Postel would have felt at the past ten years of internet stewardship and today's state of internet governance is grief.

As a professor, we have to publish papers and page charges for some open access journals can be  prohibitive if we don't have a research grant  or if we are from developing countries. Nevertheless we can apply for waivers.
No one who needs it that cannot afford to pay is denied.

Alas the whole domain name business is so badly corrupted by money politics and greed. As an internet volunteer in the spirit of internet voluntarism as many of you are, I am sure you feel a tinge of injustice at the very least if something invented for the main purpose of helping disenfranchised communities, especially in the case of IDNs, who don't use English to get online, that 12 years later and in the foreseeable future they will continue to be shut out for financial reasons and excluded on the wrong side of the digital divide because the entry barrier is raised so ridiculously high.

And most the decisions made are shaped largely by the concern of the haves at the expense of the havenots. As a internet pioneer for tech nology and community way back then, I look back at the world before the Internet and cannot feel the strong sense that this powerful technology has been abused in several important ways to make life worse than before for significant groups of people without adequate measures that could have been taken by those in positions of power. They have bowed to the pressure of other rich and powerful people and groups, or they themselves have now joined the club of the rich and the powerful. Which is not a bad thing per se, but it is what you ought to have done or stood up for but failed to, that condemns. These days, this group is about the only one list I read on matters relating to ICANN.  I am not rich or powerful but I feel condemned already for being part of that Internet which I championed but failed to do enough. Such is the sad reality of today's Internet.



-----Original Message-----
From: Carlos A. Afonso <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2010 8:48 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Interesting challenge - .reality

Not now... Icann staff did yet another blunder with a concoction named
"EOI" and they are back to the drawing board in deciding what the
pre-qualification process will be. In the meantime, keep at least US$55K
ready to throw into a [very] high risk venture.

frt rgds

--c.a.

Marc Perkel wrote:
> 
> 
> Jorge Amodio wrote:
>>> spiritual counseling class) - So - if (when) I apply for .reaity - what
>>>     
>>
>> Make sure that on your application you don't recreate the typo :-) ...
>>
>> Cheers
>> Jorge
>>   
> 
> Good point.
> 
> BTW - how do I apply for the .reality TLD?
> 

-- 

Carlos A. Afonso
CGI.br (www.cgi.br)
Nupef (www.nupef.org.br)
====================================
new/nuevo/novo e-mail: [log in to unmask]
====================================