Well, that just shifts the problem of name resolution into the TLD space. Trying to arbitrate .apple between Apple Computer and Apple Records is no different t

Well, that just shifts the problem of name resolution into the TLD space. Trying to arbitrate .apple between Apple Computer and Apple Records is no different than trying to arbitrate apple.com between them. More generally, the problem is that any single namespace containing approximately the entirety of the world's electronic communication will result in name collisions. This already occurs in natural language absent of electronic communications. Monster Park in San Francisco is sponsored by Monster Cable, except that it's commonly thought to be the careers site Monster, or even Monster Energy Drink. This collision problem will happen no matter what the medium is. .com names will collide, TLDs will collide, top search results will collide, keywords (like AOL's) will collide, all because natural language collides. The best we can do is include an arbitration system to resolve obvious offenses when possible while keeping out the speculators and spammers, which approximately is what ICANN is doing with the new TLDs.