I wish I could think faster. If I could, I would have said something at ICANN's meeting two months ago in Vancouver that I'm saying now on this weblog. The central debate in Vancouver was over whether to approve the proposed ICANN-Verisign registry contract, including its controversial "presumptive renewal" provision. The "presumptive renewal" provision is what guarantees Verisign that it will run .COM in perpetuity absent some serious malfeasance on its part. The reason most often repeated in support of "presumptive renewal" was that the provision encourages "investment."

The more I think about it, the less certain I am that this point has any merit at all. It sure sounded good at the time though, and everyone just sort of nodded as if "presumptive renewal = investment" were some inarguable truth. On reflection, however, the argument doesn't withstand even modest scrutiny. The infrastructure and personnel necessary to run .COM or .PRO could just as easily be turned to run .INFO or .CN. If you're in the registry business, you're investing in the infrastructure and personnel necessary to run any number of registration databases. The registry is agnostic about what TLD it serves. Registries don't invest in specific TLD strings, they invest in the infrastructure to serve any TLD string.

All of this has me wondering: how is this different than Boeing and Airbus? If Boeing loses the United contract to Airbus, it simply has to compete harder when American places its next order. If I'm United, I don't see how giving Boeing a perpetual contract with my airline would make it more likely to invest in making quality airplanes. Doesn't quality goes up when you have to compete?

If "presumptive renewal" truly encourages investing, the opposite point is equally true: renewal without competition encourages waste and inefficiency.
I also wish I read more. Here's a piece from Mike Davidson's weblog from March, 2005 titled "How to Snatch an Expiring Domain Name." I wish I had read it a year ago. First hand accounts are the best tutorials. I picked up this name -- the best name in my portfolio, IMHO -- a few years ago from a friend of a friend, in the days when you had to know somebody to catch a dropping name.  Another good place to do some catch-up reading is on Scott Bradner's page on Network World. I only recently became aware that Scott had a regular column, and it's quickly become one of my favorites. I miss the days when I too had a magazine column. Can you tell?
U.S. Ambassador David Gross: "We think ICANN has done a good job."
One of the more interesting aspects of yesterday's podcast, that I didn't fully appreciate while the conversation was taking place, was the emphasis that Elliot and Antony placed on new TLDs with a distinct semantic meaning. Elliot suggested that the Achilles heel of .COM might just be the fact that it no longer stands for anything. I might recharacterize the importance of a "distinct semantic meaning" as the need for a "recognizable identity." When I say this, I'm particularly mindful of the .III top-level domain, on which I worked in 2000. .III has no semantic meaning (on purpose), but will have a recognizable meaning when it's marketed as a TLD for individuals.
Speaking of .III, ICANN Board member Susan Crawford provides us all a nice reminder that transparency is the blogger's best friend. To that end, let me add that the .III team is thinking of getting the band back together again. If we do, I'll have a role in that. If and when we make that commitment, I'll blog it here and make a full disclosure on the ALAC and GNSO Council lists. It's just in the discussion phases now, but I think a significant market still exists for an individual name space. And frankly, for the all the abuse we took in 2000 about 'how do you pronounce it' and 'what does it mean,' I still think .iii rocks. So does .i.
Finally, a request for help. Do you know someone who has built a popular business or high-traffic personal web site based on a domain name in one of the new gTLDs? If so, I'd like to talk to them on an upcoming podcast. I want to hear why they chose a new gTLD instead of a .COM, .NET, .ORG or a ccTLD. I want to hear what challenges they faced in marketing their site.

Coming Monday: "The Birth of the Internet Governance Forum."