Definition: Good technology, often created through simple processes, lends itself to
applications unforeseen by its designers.
Paradox: The unforeseen applications often have highly contentious issues associated
with them that the original process is incapable of addressing:
DNS resolves names to IP numbers. Now small countries with roots such as ".nu"
and ".tm" are likely to garner significant portions of their national income
from domain name registration.
Cookies manage state for a single Web site. Now used to track users and store profile
information across sites.
HTML links are a useful way to navigate information. Now companies frequently create
contracts and sue each other because of an unwanted link.
Once those applications and their economic dependencies are established, technical or
policy reformation is extremely difficult.
Is this paradox reflected in your issue? Is their a way to overcome it? How can we
resolved the seemingly intractable situations?
