More on generic domains, and poli-spam

brad — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 10:23:30 -0800

There has been some discussion of the generic domain proposal on slashdot (alas mostly incorrect because they didn't read the underlying essays.) The posting here was also posted on
CircleID a DNS discussion site, and there are multiple comments.

As noted, my blog entry was primarily a summary of views related to the proposal of yet another generic TLD. Mistakenly I gave the .yahoo example making some people think I was proposing just giving TLDs to big companies, which is the exact opposite of the proposal. Those who wish to comment should see actual proposal to break up ICANN to see where I'm coming from.

Additional not on Political Spam: John Gilmore wondered if it might be unconstitutional to limit the number of E-mails each candidate got to send to the voters in their district. I doubt that's true, but it turns out it's not needed. If voters have easy opt-out links and an opt-out web site, candidates that overwhelm voters with messages would quickly be unsubscribed to, losing their chance to get their message out closer to the election.

It's also not necessary to provide email for ballot propositions. They are not really in need of campaign finance reform in the same way. Those who donate to a proposition do so only to help it win. They may have ulterior motives for that, but they are not doing it to get influence with a candidate later on other issues, which is the CFR problem.

Otherwise doing ballot propositions seems harder, since it is hard to see who would be the "official" opponent (though election books seem to do something here.) Everybody deserves a say, but open mail lists clearly would not work.

Brad Ideas - More on generic domains, and poli-spam - Comments

More on generic domains, and poli-spam