(2) [...] The openness and transparency requirements of Article III, Section 1, however, apply to the activities of ICANN, not to those of other entities. Entities that operate TLDs under delegations from ICANN are not required to follow the same procedures as ICANN.

In a truly free market any overly restrictive gTLD would fail as consumers would choose an alternative. With ICANN holding a monopoly on the root servers and IP blocks, there is no alternative. Therefore big biz and big gov wind up with a throttlehold on the namespace. That was something they didn't have and they've regretted it ever since. ICANN was created to get it for them and is doing a masterful job of that, if nothing else, to date.

If you're thinking: well there's still some ccTLDs and com/net/org that aren't restricted, there are alternatives; true enough, for now. Wait for the newer, more restricted, gTLDs to then claim unfair competition, forcing ICANN (who will claim they really don't want to do it) to then retroactively throttle existing open TLDs. If they can attempt to resell your domain while you're still using it (the WLS may be dead, but some variation will be accepted in its place), they can certainly hit new registrants and re-registrants of sLDs with modified clickwrap agreements. And one of these days we'll wake up and it will be no easier to get an unrestricted domain than it is to get broadcast rights for a section of the AM radio band, never mind that the former space, unlike the latter, is to all practical purposes infinite. That is, there are no technical reasons for such restrictions of the namespace.

Kudos to the Practical Nomad, who singlehandedly gave ICANN a real run for its money. If each TLD had an equivalent dissenter we'd be in far better shape. -g

... which is no different than the Taliban monster.