I take issue with the author's criticism of .is. They've recently told most of the world to go fuck themselves, and one of their members of parliament is a Wikileaks spokesperson. I'm thinking they're pretty pro-freedom.
As an Irish citizen I must admit I'm a little envious of how Iceland has faced down the rest of the world, even if I don't agree 100% with what they did. I think the authors criticism is primarily an economic one. Like Ireland, Iceland is economically weak and can't afford to annoy major trade partners. Would the government concede certain things if subtly threatened with sanctions, even unofficial ones, over IP etc? Maybe, maybe not. Ireland certainly would fold immediately.
I believe he meant that despite their intentions their size and precarious economic state leaves them open to pressure relative to countries of similar cultural values.
I'm not so sure how relevant the economic strength of a nation is in this decision.
It was not that long ago that Ireland was seen as a booming example of economic growth. In a relatively short term that boom has turned sour.
The selection of a domain name is an integral part of your brand and that is LONG term.
Therefore short term fluctuations in economic success should play a muted part in your domain name decision.
The bottom line here is that the direct US controlled TLDs of .com, .net and .org are now slowly becoming poisonous in the branding decision for any company that may risk annoying the RIAA or MPAA with their new "fangled" business model that disrupts the existing media space or their profit margin (or perceived profit margin) in any way.
The US is shooting itself in foot, but personally I find that a good thing. I see this as a great step in reducing the prominence (and worth) of the core TLDs and ICANN.
I find it quite interesting that when it comes to .com names in particular we are coming towards a point where the saturation is so great, there are no viable domains left. Since land is not ubiquitous, saturation means that you are limited to trading those existing properties only, whilst with domain names, we can create a new TLD and start over again. It is like being able to create new land.
As a further analogy, we discover a new M class planet and some of us brave new worlders start moving there. Everyone living on Earth things we are mad (wtf, they have no Starbucks), but who cares right, we have a virgin planet to discover and plenty of new land to stake our claim upon. We get to choose the best bits of land for ourselves before all those Earthlings get fed up of living in their over-populated land and jump on star ships to join us.
You also get to run your servers off volcanic activity, which is pretty cool and ideal for any aspiring Blofeld, although it does sound potentially risky.
Pie in the sky here, but I never understood why we didn't just drill big holes in the sides of volcanoes, drop a boiler in it, and stick a turbine on top with a radiator/condenser outside. Seems like a pretty easy source of "free" electricity.
Too high risk, and too costly, but mostly a huge risk. It may triggered an unwanted uncontrolled eruption. Which may destroy the local area, grind European flights to halt, cause global cooling, kill all life... etc.
Also that boiler you want to stick in, will need to be made of some exceptional heat resistant material. And probably be replaced very frequently. Not very easy and very expensive. :)
But Iceland do have a lot of geothermal steam based generators.
