[governance] privatising ccTLDs

[Milton L Mueller]

> From: McTim [mailto:dogwallah at gmail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 6:29 AM
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Subject: [governance] privatising ccTLDs
> 
> http://www.cointernet.co/
> 
> Do we have any thing to say on this?

This is old news. The granddaddy of so-called "privatized" ccTLDs (a better name would be quasi-generic TLDs, because many normal ccTLDs are run or even quasi-owned by nonprofits) is .TV of Tuvalu. And .cc of the Cocos and Keeling Islands. In both cases, the local authority made the decision that it would rather market the name globally and get financial benefits than run it as a straight ccTLD. Which was quite justifiable, given the tiny size of their domestic internet economies. Both have been purchased by VeriSign, which owns .com.

The only disturbing thing about .CO in my mind is their rather explicit play as a confusingly similar substitute for .com, and some rather open moves to typosquat or profit from that confusion. There are two sides to that story - on one hand it is good to have an alternative/competitor to .com, on the other hand confusion and typo-squatting are not good and can serve as a way of shaking down the TM owners who have the .com names. 

Another interesting aspect of this is how "national sovereignty" serves as a shield for behavior that would be completely illegal and ethically unacceptable if done by anyone other than a putative ccTLD. The mantle of "sovereignty" - which often has important and legitimate uses as a form of distributing political power - can also be abused and exploited so that a ccTLD operator gets the best of both worlds - the profits and marketing ability of the commercial world and the immunity from law associated with states. 

--MM

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