the good, the bad and the ugly...

or the f*cking second-level-domains.

And no - don't tell me anything about ISO and standards - it seems, that some NICs set up standards for each and everything, while others just comply to "unwritten" standards.

Look at .pl with the "Standard-SLs"
agro.pl, aid.pl, atm.pl, auto.pl, biz.pl, com.pl, edu.pl, gmina.pl, gsm.pl, info.pl, mail.pl, media.pl, miasta.pl, mil.pl, net.pl, nom.pl, org.pl, pc.pl, priv.pl, realestate.pl, rel.pl, shop.pl, sklep.pl, sos.pl, targi.pl, tm.pl, tourism.pl, travel.pl, turystyka.pl

or .br with
adm.br, adv.br, am.br, arq.br, art.br, bio.br, cng.br, cnt.br, com.br, ecn.br, eng.br, esp.br, etc.br, eti.br, fm.br, fot.br, fst.br, g12.br, gov.br, ind.br, inf.br, jor.br, lel.br, med.br, mil.br, net.br, nom.br, ntr.br, odo.br, org.br, ppg.br, pro.br, psc.br, psi.br, rec.br, slg.br, tmp.br, tur.br, tv.br, vet.br, zlg.br

How many domains do you expect to find under Second-Level-Domains as fancy as "turystyka.pl" or "vet.br" ?? - Try a zonetransfer and see, if you get 100 Domainnames.

Others "just do it" and set up pseudo-SLDs like com.al.

Others just do it and set up pseudo-SLDs for every part of the country: stuff like all the italian or american "ro.it", "bz.it", "bs.it, "ut.us", "ws.us" and so on...

Others just register a fancy domain and sell subdomains like gb.net, gb.com, us.com, ru.com, eu.com, de.vu and so on.

Hey, NS-Admins, Hey ICANN:

this is UGLY!

- at least for me trying to get things sorted out in a manner to make queries simple and understandable for somebody who doesn't (want) to know about SLDs.

tom