In response to Matthew Trim's posting...
(not copied here - look at the list archive if you want)

_Personally_ I think that a public administrative task should
be performed by a public administrative entity. Company names
are registered by the ASC - DNS names are little different.

BUT Matthew you and I are in a minority of very small proportions.
The overall public policy stance is industry self-regulation, and
the mantra goes along the lines that where a task can be performed
on a commercial basis government should stand back and allow
a competitive market place assume the role. 

So you and I may be spot on in our views, but we are not swimming
with the flow on this :-)

regarding names....

DNS names are a morass - there are so many existing name spaces,
ranging from trademarks (although the 'mark' may have many dimensions
including font, color, etc which do not map cleanly into the DNS)
through company names to busioness names and personal names.

The DNS appears to be the servant of ALL of these names spaces, with
conflict resolved in a way which is completely uncertain, with
no clear delineation of legal responsbility between the applicant, the
applican;ts agent and the name administrator. The depressingly expensive
answer is "let the courts sort it out". The perhaps even more depressing
view is that sooner or later they will attempt to do so - at our
collective cost !


cheers,

  Geoff