[dns-operations] keeping ICANN busy

[David Conrad]

Randy,

On Sep 21, 2012, at 5:23 PM, Randy Bush <randy at psg.com> wrote:
>> first, this discussion isn't fruitful and won't be. the place to send
>> your comments is:
>> http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/sac053-dotless-domains-24aug12-en.htm
> i did

Thanks!

> is outside the root zone and none of their damned business

I understand and sympathize with this point of view, however, as a counter-example: wildcards in .COM were outside of the root zone, was that also none of ICANN's business?

My personal view: as opposed to the ccTLDs, ICANN is in a contractual relationship with gTLD providers and thus bears some responsibility to ensure the actions of those providers are in keeping with expected behavior.  Because the behavior of dotless domains (like wildcards in TLDs) has unexpected/undesirable consequences, I believe it is appropriate for ICANN, as a party to allowing those TLDs to be created, to limit those behaviors.  This is not to say I think they should be forever outlawed, rather I believe the parties that introduce them should be required to go through existing processes (ones created after the SiteFinder situation) to ensure there is foreknowledge of potential weirdness.

YMMV.

Regards,
-drc