>>>> As a writer, I strongly uphold the right to freedom of speech - in all its various forms. I therefore take no pleasure in recommending that there should be tighter regulations on the most dynamic force for media freedom yet, namely: the internet.

My concern, however, is not with internet content. Children eventually grow out of soiling themselves, so I have faith that we'll see internet content with higher degrees of quality and integrity in the future - and less soiling... We must give ourselves time and patience.

My concern is with the registration of domains names which use the proper names of world cities, townships, states, provinces - even countries - by large corporations. It is a blatant conspiracy to lure unwitting surfers to their corporate websites, thereby increasing "traffic", which then lures more paying advertisers.

The end result is confusion and a blatant deception of the public. The mass of proper city names already registered to high-level corporations - newspaper chains, etc. - indicates that a well-orchestrated world-wide deception of the public is underway. It must be stopped now, before we become complacent again about another abuse of the public trust in the name of greed.

And think about this: should foreign corporations be allowed to provide internet content for, let's say: Canada.com for example, in case they buyout the Canadian company that owns the domain name? What can prevent this from happening? Why is this even possible?

The fate of the internet is not only in the hands of multinational corporations, but also in mine and in yours. So let's do something, now! If you care about this kind of thing, read on.

These proper-name-bearing websites are certainly not open forums for public input. Nor do they officially "represent" their geographical namesakes. They are merely privately operated virtual shopping plazas from which only the shareholders and salaried players of the parent company can benefit. The corporation alone exercises the exclusive right to decide who can become a part of these city websites. Inclusion is generally based upon rent: "web tenants" have to pay their "web landlords" a generous fee to be allowed to live within their virtual city's limits.

Is "yourcity.com" a privately owned internet business? Probably - afterall, these are lucrative and prestigious internet cash cows. Now, if some guy was riding his small appliance repair business on the coattails of THE SONY CORPORATION's world-reknowned reputation by simply registering "www.SONY.com" as his own domain name, would that be ethical? Not really, right?

Well, stuff like this has happened and where corporate interests are concerned, laws come in pretty quick. But what about the public interest? Who's acting on their behalf where corporate improprieties are concerned?

Apply the "appliance repairman v.s. SONY" perspective to some corporate entity riding the coattails of your city's name and reputation - and then funnelling its own agenda through it, and a lot of money out... See what I mean?

These corporations have invested nothing in the reputation of your city - i.e. "Toronto the good" - yet the impressions of each city within the public mind becomes a living brand slogan for luring websurfers from around the globe. And once these surfers arrive at these "personal" corporate websites, they are directed toward whatever these web landlords want their visitors to spend their money on, believe in, or subscribe to.

There is no democracy when the citizen is uninformed of his choices. Without a disclaimer, these sites are committing a fraudulent act. They are breaching the trust of the public - something consumers will remember the next time around.

WHO OWNS THE TRADEMARK FOR YOUR CITY?

To have private corporations "representing" your city, community, neighbourhood to the world makes them both gate-keeper and toll booth attendant to all who come to visit. Hardly the kind of default social ethic I wish to see established in the "Global Village". The internet has too much potential for good to be simply left in the talons of those without concern for you or I, and who don't see prostitution of your city's name and reputation for their own ends as a breach of ethics.

We must protect the internet from this and other such violations by the narrow-minded so that it can do its job: to bring the world to a higher plateau in our evolution through open, honest, uninhibited communication.

Analogously, if the internet is a bloodsteam transmitting life-giving nutrients throughout the world body, then these corporations are a blood clot.

MY EXPERIENCE WITH dot-comFUSION

Try this experiment: type the name of a major city into the location bar of your internet browser - don't even put a ".com" on the end. At whose shopping mall have you arrived?

Early in 1999 I was looking for some information on Toronto. The search engine's prioritized listing system directed me toward TORONTO.com. Arriving there, my somewhat naive first impression was that I had arrived at the "offical" website for the city of Toronto. Wrong!

"All You Need To Know About T.O." was the slogan they used to create an impression of representing my city to the world. Despite their slogan though, I didn't see everything that I needed to know about T.O. there - among them: where was the information about my "Realitycheckers.com" website listed? Guess they thought you didn't need to know about me...

So why - in the name of greater world understanding and better communication - didn't they just call their website bigcorpsellingstuff.com? The point is THEY'RE NOT TORONTO - THEY'RE USING TORONTO!

If I had really wanted to visit the corporate website of several major Toronto business concerns, I would have simply looked them up in my search engine, right? For example: "Toronto Star", "Bell Canada", or "places with ad banners" - that kind of thing. What I wanted was information on Toronto. Did I get it? Well maybe - but it was distilled...

I can sympathize. It's obvious that the name "Toronto" is a far bigger draw for public interest than "yourlocalnewspaper.com". Driftnetting inevitably lands more fish than a single hook. Seeing the benefit of using a city's proper name as a lure is no feat of rocket science...

But here's one of the major problems:

What if the municipal government and people of the city of Toronto decided to join forces and build an all-inclusive, all-representative website? If they wanted to use the most obvious and intuitive domain name, Toronto.com, they'd be out of luck. They would have to go begging for it from either The Toronto Star newspaper, or Torstar, their parent company. Would they get it back? Hmmm.

Would any company pulling in untold millions of advertising "hits" because of their domain name alone want to sell their golden goose? Go ahead: offer The Toronto Star the 70$ U.S. it cost them to register their toronto.com domain name. See how that goes over.

Not much to think about - big, successful internet business, down to almost nothing overnight after losing the name that has attracted all their traffic. I can already see the reply letter now:

"After careful consideration of your most interesting offer, we have decided to forego this admittedly enticing proposition and continue using the domain name Toronto.com for ourselves. Thanks millions for this great name!
Signed: Watt R.U. Knutz"

Published by . . . REALITYCHECKERS.COM . . . ©1999 Roland Kriewaldt