The people who want ICANN to create .travel are saying that ICANN's delay is "insufferable".
I have discussed the hubris of the .travel proponents in the past.
It is indeed insufferable that ICANN is delaying new TLDs - ICANN has demonstrated no reason why top level domains should not be created at a rapid rate. It is time for ICANN to adopt an combination auction/lottery system as has been proposed by several observers. See http://dcc.syr.edu/miscarticles/NewTLDs-MM-LM.pdf
The .travel people seem to believe, however, that they have some divine right to their own top level domain. They are incorrect.
Certainly they have a right derived from the continued existence of their application of year 2000. But each of the 39 other applicants who were not selected that year have that same right.
There is no reason for any of us to believe that .travel will benefit the community of internet users. Rather .travel will be of value merely to one particular industry segment. If we are to allocate top level domains to industry segments, then there are certainly more deserving industries - farming, teaching, labor, and public health and safety all come to mind as being more socially valuable than the travel business.
Yes, ICANN's TLD policy is a disaster. But the damaged victim of that policy is not .travel. No. The real damage has been to the public who have been deprived of a meaningful and useful expansion of the internet name space.
Posted by karl at October 24, 2003 1:32 AM