Marcia - 5:45 pm on May 21, 2001 (gmt 0)

Going beyond value judgments, or marketing considerations, an issue I'm looking at is what could conceivably happen down the road if there were to be enough influence wrought.

This might be taking liberty with a stretch of the imagination, but consider the effect it would have if domain name acquisition came under tight Government control, and it was necessary to file an application that needed to be approved before a domain name was granted, and that there was a complaint procedure for alleged misuse.

Under that type of system, if there were subsequent complaints about suitability of content, then license to use the name could be revoked.

Would registrars protest this? No way! Think of the increased cost to administer, and the opportunity for increased revenue and profitability for those administering it.

Aside from the fact that personal liberty and privacy would be jeopardized under such a scenario, what would happen to the ability of independent webmasters and small companies to be able to pay for domain names? Prices would inevitably skyrocket.

It seems that short-term limited financial gain for few could turn out to be long-term loss for many.

Not too long ago, Woz reported on the tight government controls and restrictions in China for getting domain names. Could the same thing happen here?

Just conjecture, but not at all impossible.