The challenge with new TLDs isn't just the acquisition fee; it is infrastructure. People, world-wide network connections, redundancy, disaster tolerance, physical security, anycast addressing, legal, etc. I suppose it could be a volunteer/non-profit activity - but doubt that's practical. I don't think I'd want to take it on in my basement. In fact, to meet minimum standards, several of us would need to contribute basement space... Existing registrars/registries have all this. I don't mind paying them the same fees as we pay today for .com/.net/.us, etc for taking care of all that. I just want the operational rules to reflect this class of non-commercial users; and that means the registry agreement between ICANN and whoever operates it. That then ripples down-hill to end-user agreements that define what rights do (and don't) exist. But this is putting the cart before the horse. It seems to me that the trick is to demonstrate demand, get the requirements sorted out with buy-in from ICANN, and then get one of the existing registries + a registrar to agree to operate one. That gets it going at the marginal cost (close to $0), rather than trying to reinvent an industry. Part of the challenge is educating consumers that this/these TLD(s) are better for them. I know of people who have had their domain names confiscated under tradmark theories. But this is hardly widely understood by the public at large. Maybe we could persuade ICANN that since this is rectifying a major failure of it's duty to individuals, the first TLD application should be free. After all, .COM was free (to NSI/Verisign...) If it takes off, the other registrars would sign up, and the next TLD could pay for itself. Of course, all this only addresses the new TLD approach - it still leaves no rights for individuals in domain names under current TLDs. On another note, registering redcross.ncu would be perfectly OK as I see it (say, the red cross quilting club, or my cousin Red Cross.); having a website on that domain with the red cross's trademarked logo (especially that collected money) would be fraud under any legal theory. E.g. while having a domain name that could be confused with a trademark seems OK, providing content using that domain that interferes with the trademark owner's business/reputation is not. This would be different from redcross.org, where no matter what the content, there's a reasonable expectation that you get the NGO. --------------------------------------------------------- This communication may not represent my employer's views, if any, on the matters discussed. -----Original Message----- From: NCSG-NCUC [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nicolas Adam Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 15:20 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Cybersquatting and individuals I guess from an (individual) non-profit perspective it is indeed totally unreasonable. I kind of assumed that all TLD-launching operations would be for-profit. Should we strive for a price distinction between for-profit and not-for-profit endeavors (keeping in mind that all new TLDs would likely still need be approved)? Nicolas On 07/04/2011 3:01 PM, Timothe Litt wrote: > As an individual, coming up with several US$100K to make this happen > isn't reasonable.