You have a good point on .com and adding verifications, but that would be like trying to bottle a fart. There’s 60+ Million domain names that one would have to somehow ‘grandfather’ policy on, or face a customer support headache the likes of which FEMA would be needed to mitigate.

The status-quo on registration requirements are already so widely adopted, this would IMHO be unpractical to impliment vs. adding a new, more restrictive namespace.

Its far more practical to start with very rigid restrictions and then release restrictions and enforcement as is practical than it is to later attempt to introduce them. The only practical way forward would be to introduce new namespace on this, so as to start from a clean slate.

Look at .COM.AU or .ES, or .FR. These are namespaces that are beginning to relax the restrictiveness and requirements, but had very difficult criteria to qualification on registration.

It is hard to introduce restrictiveness in the absence of it… Just ask the music industry about their experiences with online music.

-Jothan