Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2011 19:22:46 -0700 From: Michael Thomas <mike@mtcc.com>
that's a good question. marka mentioned writing an RFC, but i expect that ICANN could also have an impact on this by having applicants sign something that says "i know that my single-label top level domain name will not be directly usable the way normal domain names are and i intend to use it only to register subdomain names which will work normally."
Isn't this problem self regulating? If sufficient things break with a single label, people will stop making themselves effectively unreachable, right?
alas, no. if someone adds something to the internet that doesn't work right but they ignore this and press onward until they have market share, then the final disposition will be based on market size not on first mover advantage. if you live in the san francisco bay area you probably know about the "sound walls" along the US101 corridor. the freeway was originally built a long way from where the houses were, but then a few generations of people built their houses closer and closer to the freeway. then their descendants or the folks who bought these houses third or fourth hand complained about the road noise and so we have sound walls. no harm exactly, and no foul, except, noone likes the result much. here's this quote again: "Distant hands in foreign lands are turning hidden wheels, causing things to come about which no one seems to feel. All invisible from where we stand, the connections come to pass and though too strange to comprehend, they affect us nonetheless, yes." James Taylor, _Migrations_ good stewardship and good governance means trying to avoid such outcomes.