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George Riddick - 30 June 2008

The fat lady has started to sing ... did anyone notice?

"Hey, at least we were the world's superpower during the last Century ... let's not get greedy!"

Let there be no doubt about it. The biggest financial asset this country controls, by far, is the English language. We do not own the language, but we control its use in a certain way all around the world.

How? Because our language, and our alphabet, has been the standard that has been used throughout the first two stages of the Internet over the past 18 years. What, these days, is more dominant and valuable than the Internet?

But all of that is about to change. The Internet in entering into "round three". Round three will see more changes in three years then we have seen in total in the first eighteen. Significantly more.

The most important international business meeting of this century, and probably of the last century as well, took place in Paris this past week. It got surprisingly little press coverage.

Do you know what it was all about and how it is likely going to impact your life?

Can't you hear the fat lady singing in the background?

Everything is about to change. It will change the way we eat, the way we communicate, the way we drive, the number of children we have, the way we travel, the vacations we take, who wins the Super Bowl, and the way we interact with each other. It will change EVERYTHING. Including the balance of economic power we have become used to for the past 80+ years.

Last week, ICANN, the non-profit organization that governs the Internet, after years and years of debate, officially opened up the Internet to everyone on the planet. They voted overwhelmingly to implement a system that could double or triple the number of web sites and domain properties in existence and how we get to them from anywhere around the world. They gave a huge edge to large corporations and government entities, but what law have you seen in the past ten years that didn't further shift this wealth equation around the world?

The widening gap between the world's haves and the have-nots has been accelerated once again. Wait and see.

In short, Microsoft, Ford, and Google can now (starting next April) register domains and web sites with their own monopolized domain suffix and extension, such as www.indianfood.microsoft, www.explorer.ford, and www.power.google. No more ".com", ".de" (for Germany) or ".net" needed. So can counties, cities and states, such as www.porn.newyorkcity, www.mormons.utah, or www.peaches.georgia.

Any small business or individual Internet user out there that thinks this is good news should think again. This could, in fact, be the end of fair play and parity in cyberspace. "Beware the empires with the largest space ships!"

This is good news for the emerging economies around the world, however. The US of A doesn't fit into that category. In fact, China and India, alone, if they continue their current rates of economic growth, will control over 50% of the world's GNP in not so many years. It's staggering to think of all the possible consequences.

Add to that the fact that ICANN also approved the development of new Internet addresses in languages other than English. If 1.5 billion people in China speak Chinese, and the Internet is offered up to them in Chinese, what percentage of them do you think will choose to use the non-English option? What will THAT shift, alone, do to the current balance of economic power? And don't forget all of the folks who speak Portuguese down there in Brazil.

John McCain has not mentioned this (he claims to know what the Internet is from what I hear him say). Barack Obama has not said a word (he is being advised by one of the most outspoken "everything on the Internet should be free" advocates this country has ever seen). Unless this has something to do registering a new ".crawford" domain address, you will not likely hear a peep about it from either George Bush or Dick Cheney over the next seven months ... let alone Connie.

And now that Tim Russert and George Carlin have passed, you will not likely find anyone ballsy enough to even ask the tough questions over the remainder of this decade. By then, it will far too late.

Wake up America. We have lost manufacturing dominance forever. China has won the battle over the earth's natural resources, and has its eye on space as well. We have lost customer service dominance to India and the islands within the last decade. We practically encourage other countries to steal our intellectual property so that we can lose dominance in the creative industries soon, as well.

We dominate one thing and one thing only these days. We still dominate the majority of the content that is delivered over the Internet. Until last week, we also dominated free speech and our future.

I know how to fix this problem. But I'm learning this new game as well. Someone is going to have to pay me big bucks to get me to talk. Are you listening, China? How about you, Google?

George

George P. Riddick, III

Chairman/CEO

Imageline, Inc.

griddick@imageline2.com

Paul Massey - 02 July 2008

Or perhaps this is a great opportunity for the future of the internet, with a new domain name based on a secure future. This domain could ensure that all sites within it are contributing to social and environmental benefit.

A debate has been started at Facebook which I'd invite everyone to join:

GTLD - the Top Level Debate ;

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18711156732

George, you have painted a pretty bleak picture there, and said you know how to fix "the problem" (as you call it) while asking for big bucks to talk. Most problems - if there even is one - aren't fixed that way.