Re: [DNSOP] Interim DNSOP WG meeting on Special Use Names: some reading material

[Ted Lemon <[e-mail]>]

On May 7, 2015, at 9:56 AM, Livingood, Jason <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Beyond that, does it end up being a cheap way to avoid the ICANN process of creating a new gTLD. For example, I am not aware that anything prevents the ToR project from applying to ICANN for the .onion gTLD. So from one perspective, would more people just deploy into an unused namespace and then later lay claim the the namespace retroactively based on their use (gTLD-squatting)? This could be quite messy at scale, and I am not sure the IETF has a process to deal with and consider competing uses. 

I think this is an unfortunate way to look at the issue.   We have a clear process for allocating special-use domain names.   If TOR had come to us and asked for one, would you argue that they should pay ICANN $180k to get it?   Where would that money come from?   They don't need a delegation.   They just need for the name to be registered as a special-use name.   This is not at all the same situation as someone coming to us asking to get a _delegation_ for a TLD based on the special-use domain name process.   Special-use doesn't apply in that case, and we would reject it.   So your argument amounts to a straw man.

I think part of the reaction to this proposal at the moment is that the process _wasn't_ followed.   And so we are rightly concerned that future candidates for special-use names will also not follow the process, leading us to have to revisit this conversation.   However, that is actually exactly wrong.

In reality, the more pushback we give for a reasonable and legitimate request for a special-use domain now, the more likely it is that when someone needs one in the future, they will give up before they try, as the ToR people did.   What we should be doing is judging those requests that seem legitimate and responding expeditiously, not creating a huge process black hole into which such requests will be swallowed.