"It's just that IETF has discussed this periodically for many years." Understood and valid. And this will be my last post to the main page on this subject. What I would like to point out as that the change to the root, that ICANN has described "as never been before", has now been done. If there was ever a time for a technologist to apply their expertise for the benefit of the community on this subject matter, now is it. For the IETF not to take this position and perform whatever it is it does by way of technical due diligence on a matter of this type of gravity is, to this lay person, a complete neglect of its purpose and responsibilities regardless of discussions that have taken place prior. Am I wrong? If not, can someone please make the recommendation by way of proper IETF protocol and get it started? Ray --