Hello, We all know that in the past, in order to register a domain name (2nd level domain name) we had go to an ICANN accredited "Domain Registrar". And back then, you could only register 2nd Level Domain Names (names on the left side of the "." in a domain name) with their invented Top Level Domain Names (names on the right side of the "." in a domain name). This means, we are restricted to what Top Level Domain Names ICANN invents. eg. ".com", ".net", ".org", ".uk" etc. And, you could not have anything like ".bt", ".ms", ".02" or even ".tom", ".dick", ".harry". But now, I came across many ICANN competitors and was taken aback because I thought ICANN owns the domain naming and routing system. You can say that, ICANN was like BT a monopoly in it's market in the past with no competitions but now this monopoly has been broken and a lot of private companies aswell as non-profit organisations have sprung-up. These competitions are called "Alternate Name Spaces". Check them out : http://www.opennic.unrated.net http://www.open-rsc.org http://www.name-space.com http://www.new.net (You can do a search on google to learn more about "Alternate Name Spaces". I don't know much about them, really). The following links was pointed out by one to me as a reply to my doubts about their answers that any "Tom", "Dick" and "Harry" can run an "Alternate Name Space". Frankly, I didn't get the time to read them : http://namespace.org/law/ http://freethe.net/ To add further surprise, I learned that, from these non-profit organisations you can actually acquire free domain names or 2nd Level Domain Names with their invented Top Level Domain Names. But the surprise does not end here as it also seems that, any Tom, Dick and Harry can suggest any Top Level Domain Names (TLD) to them and have it up and running. So for example, if today, BT suggests to them to create a ".bt" then it is possible for that TLD to come into existance. Afterwards BT can start giving away free domain names to it's customers. eg - tom.bt, dick.bt, harry.bt. Now, I was really shocked to learn from them (those "ALternate Name Spaces" that did bother to reply back to me) that any Tom, Dick and Harry can also run "Name Space" like them or ICANN and start making billions of dollars selling domain name registrations. So that means, if bt wants to start selling domain name registrations with it's ".bt" tld instead of giving them away for free to it's customers then bt can do that and make billions of pounds every year. Mmmm. Maybe, bt and the big brands should do this. Imagine having a website "startups.bt" or "startups.ms" (ms for Microsoft) or "startups.02". Anyway, I did not really believe them when they replied that any Tom, Dick and Harry can run a "Name Space" and create his own TLDs because if that was the case then how come the big brands aren't doing it? And, how come they are dependant on ICANN ? On the other hand, I thought to myself, maybe what they say is true but there must be a lot of legal issue to run a "Name Space" and create your own TLDs otherwise the big brands would have jumped in the band-wagon by now. When I asked them about "Legal Issues" to run a "Name Space" like them or ICANN, they replied there is no legal issue. That made me even more puzzled and am still wondering what's holding the big brands to get in the same boat as ICANN. Ok, I can understand that ICANN is big just like BT is big and newbies don't have that much market reach but what is holding businesses from joining these "Alternate Name Spaces" and requesting them to run TLDs in their brand names instead of starting-up their own independant "Name Spaces" or more "Alternate Name Spaces" ? Anyway, I will post here what I asked them (the Alternate Name Spaces) but I am not going to post what they replied because it's best you get the answers direct from them and since their replies were only for me they may cause trouble if I start releasing their replies publicly. If you are a business consultant or have skills giving business advice then I invite you to post your answers to each of the questions I asked these "Alternate Name Spaces". This way, I can see if your answers matches their's. Finally, you can ask them questions yourself. Oh by the way, do make some posts in this thread. Interesting topic, really. Thank You