You know, I was so focused on digital copyright issues that I wasn't thinking about ICANN when I wrote that posting. But of course it's the same situation. I haven't noticed that the empirical instability evidence against adding TLDs is very strong -- in fact, it's nonexistent. ICANN, yes, plays the role of the mock-technical ATT in this setting, keeping the lid on new TLDs for "safety" reasons that are actually anticompetitive in nature. But I think ICANN is being driven by its concerns that new TLDs would be disrespectful, or unserious, or obscene in nature, which would undermine its relationship with DOC and thus Congress. It's not (unlike the Hush-a-Phone situation) that ICANN is being driven by a single incumbent or even a group of incumbents. But the stability argument is weak nonetheless.