Re: [DNSOP] dotless names (was Re: followup and proposed actions: RFC 6761 interim and next steps)

["John Levine" <[e-mail]>]

>Maybe those features are actually desirable. The real issue is expectations. For the vast
>majority of uses dotless names are simply not an option as there are way too many built-in
>expectations in pretty much every piece of software that deals with domain names.

On the other hand, have the data point of about 15 ccTLDs that publish
A or MX records at the TLD.  Some of them have done so for a very long
time.  I'm not saying that it's a wonderful idea to have dotless
names, but they haven't led to disaster yet.

On the third hand, if we do think that no new TLDs should have dotless
names (a reasonal position in my book), last year's argument about
.SEARCH and the recent discussions about .HOME suggest that it's not a
great idea to depend on ICANN policies to be permanent.  In the
argument about changing the policy to allow dotless .SEARCH, from what
I saw, Google's dominance of the search market had at least as much to
do with the outcome as the technical issues. Another application from
an applicant that does not dominate its industry would not necessarily
be resolved the same way.

R's,
John