[sgift]

> I get that it's difficult to work out if the domain is going to be used for a legit purpose, but surely that's easier to do at the point of registration than it is to police afterwards?

How could it be easier? I could always start legitimate[1] and then switch later. Now, if you think about the context of "faceb00k.com is probably not legitimate" you get in all sort of discussions about what is okay, what is not okay, what is an edge case.

All these proposals bring us further into a domain where private persons/companies are deputized to rule what is okay under the law, because court processes take so long and are so complicated. It ignores that there is a reason they are long and complicated. We've learned the hard way what happens if they are not.

[1] For the sake of this post let's assume legitimate means 'okay under the law' and split away the question of morality

[marcus_holmes]

Yes, this is complex. I agree; so far we've been pretending it's not complicated, and that's not really working any more.

The law is based on moral decisions, so I think "splitting that away" is probably circular - eventually a law will be made to deal with an immoral situation. We might as well consider the morality now and save some time.

I think we should get into all sorts of discussions about what's OK, what's not OK, and what is an edge case. People should be held responsible for what happens on their domain. There should be a discussion about whether the potential registration of "faceb00k.com" is legitimate or not.

What if there was a jury of 12 random people who had to approve every domain registration, and also decide whether that domain registrant should be anonymous or not? Would that lead to better results than we have now?