Just What is a Top Level Domain? — .Sport Asks

.Sport questions the definition of “top level”.

If the .Sport Policy Advisory Council has its way, Shaq won’t be able to get his hands on the .basketball TLD.

In a letter to ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate-Thrush and CEO Rod Beckstrom, the .Sport Policy Advisory Council suggests that a top level domain name ought to be the very top of a category, and anything less than that would diminish the importance of top level domain names.

The letter states:

…Thus, the international sport family fully supports ICANN’s desire to logically expand the Domain Name System in an orderly manner and looks forward to seeing .SPORT on the Internet very soon.

Still, we also take this opportunity to raise a serious concern and hereby inform you that we emphatically oppose any diminution of .SPORT and will take all steps necessary to ensure that the top-level domain for our sector is properly protected. We are concerned that ICANN may be prematurely entertaining a process that will allow proliferation of names in sub-categories or individual sports, which will lead to confusion in the marketplace of users. We cannot accept ICANN approving any applications for top-level domains that could diminish the solidarity implied with .SPORT.

This rationale could be a slippery slope as everything could be a category of something else. By the council’s definition, .music may not be allowed since it is a subcategory of .entertainment. .NYC shouldn’t exist since it could be part of .newyork, which in turn could be part of .us (which by now exists as a country code domain). And perhaps .Sport shouldn’t exist since it’s a subcategory of .things.

This is part of the argument that fresh TLDs shouldn’t be released at all, since everything can operate under .com, such as sport.com or basketball.sport.com.

Let the games begin.