On Tuesday 4 Apr 2000, Doug Robb <doug&#167;cygnus.uwa.edu.au> wrote about
private operators trying to position country domains as suitable tld's.  For
example:

>http://www.marketplace.mp/
>
>The .mp actually stands for Marianas Pacific... but the company marketing
it are saying it stands for "Market Place". I suspect ICANN will stop this
practice soon (ie private groups hijacking a country code) or at the very
least ensuring the structure is .com.mp or similar and not mydomain.mp as is
the case now.
>
>It was allocated as a country code and so I would consider that this is the
purpose it should be used for, not for some defacto generic category.

See also the little country of Niue on  http://www.nunames.nu/

I quite agree that it's wrong but a lot of people are criticising INWW for
interfering with the free market.  Is this really any different?

As far as the structure, several real countries don't use the DOT COM bit.
I think the Philippines is one example.  That's a good idea as you only have
to buy one name.

In the DOT COM world many people (including myself) try to buy up all three
(com, net and org) as a form of protection.  That means you pay three times
as much to buy the set.  At least with places like Marianas Pacific, there's
only one to buy.

Other countries, such as France for example, take the opposite view with
many more varieties that us.  But we've got a few when you include GOV, EDU,
ASN etc.

And I can't see ICANN regulating against it in special cases - they'd have
to apply the rule fairly across the board.

Patrick Corliss
patrick&#167;quad.net.au