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ICANN Board Approves Wide Expansion of TLDs
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Jun 26, 2008 01:24 PM
from the dibs-on-dot-tim dept.
from the dibs-on-dot-tim dept.
penciling_in writes "The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved the relaxation of the rules for the introduction of new Top-Level Domains — a move that could drastically change the Internet. 'We are opening up a new world and I think this cannot be underestimated,' said Roberto Gaetano, an ICANN board member. The future outcome of this decision was discussed on Slashdot a few days ago. It also seems, based on this post on CircleID from last month, that ICANN was already in preparation mode of mass TLD introductions. The new decision will allow companies to register their brands as generic top-level domain names (TLDs). For instance, Microsoft could apply to have a TLD such as '.msn', Apple apply for '.mac', and Google for '.goog'... The decision was taken unanimously on Thursday, June 26, 2008 at the 32nd ICANN Meeting in Paris."
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The Beginnings of a TLD Free-For-All? 489 comments
Mordok-DestroyerOfWo writes "According to the BBC, ICANN is considering opening up the wholesale creation of TLDs by private industry. While I'm sure this is done for the convenience of the companies and has nothing to do with the several thousand dollars they will be charging for each registration, I was curious what the tech community at large thought about this idea. It seems to me that this will simply open the doors for a never-ending stream of TLD squatters."
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There will be some good from this. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:There will be some good from this. (Score:5, Funny)
You'll have to talk to Hoover to register domains under it, though.
Parent
Re:There will be some good from this. (Score:5, Funny)
You'll have to talk to Hoover to register domains under it, though.
Dam!
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Re:There will be some good from this. (Score:5, Insightful)
Talk about printing your own money.
This is like paying the city to give your driveway a name, so you can brag about what a blue blood you are for having your own street.
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Re:There will be some good from this. (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing they would want to block is the
Imagine if some company bought the
This brings up a good point, if you want to look at where this can be exploited, simply look at the dropped and invalid query records of the current root servers. I just hope they have some common sense... oh wait...
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Re:There will be some good from this. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:There will be some good from this. (Score:5, Funny)
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first.post (Score:5, Funny)
fuck.icann
Re:first.post (Score:5, Funny)
icann.not
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The end of ctrl+enter days? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The end of ctrl+enter days? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The end of ctrl+enter days? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:The end of ctrl+enter days? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The end of ctrl+enter days? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The end of ctrl+enter days? (Score:5, Funny)
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Interesting reversal (Score:5, Interesting)
As if the internet didn't have enough arbitrary hodge-podge already.
Re:Interesting reversal (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:http://[2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7348 (Score:5, Funny)
Is that your web site on this business card, or a PGP signature? :)
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Re:Interesting reversal (Score:5, Informative)
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This is stupid - here is the solution:* (Score:5, Interesting)
A meeting of the minds between Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft resulting in an agreement to not index these idiotic domains could kill this quick before it gets out of hand.
*Will it happen - doubtful.
Can you or I do anything about it - probably not.
But I can dream.
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Slashdot can finally be what it wants (Score:5, Funny)
http://slashdot.dot/ [slashdot.dot]
Woohoo!
Re:Slashdot can finally be what it wants (Score:4, Insightful)
http://slash.dot [slash.dot]?
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Re:Slashdot can finally be what it wants (Score:5, Funny)
http://slashdot.dot/ [slashdot.dot]
Woohoo!
Hm. You could develop this into some sort of morse code.
So, since geek.com is already registered, we can register --. . . -.-, or
http://dotdotdotslash.slash/ [dotdotdotslash.slash]
Followed by
2. ???
And
3. Profit!
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Re:Slashdot can finally be what it wants (Score:5, Insightful)
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Those're gonna be some fun router tables (Score:5, Funny)
I, personally, intend to try for the ".nsfw" domain.
Re:Those're gonna be some fun router tables (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about you, but none of my router tables have DNS names in them.
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So wait.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So wait.... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:So wait.... (Score:5, Informative)
Close. They will become the registRY. The registRAR must be one of the ICANN-approved ones (you can't require a non-ICANN registrar). It isn't clear from what I've read whether you can refuse to work with any registrar and make it a closed TLD. I would assume you can, though.
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Clownpenis.fart (Score:4, Funny)
No longer the last domain available.
Abuse of TLDs (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope they have good oversight...
Imagine the chaos of tlds with: .exe .dll .prg .php .c0m (or other foreign symbol for o .txt .pdf .conf .doc .txt .xls .ppt .jpg .gif .tif .mp3 .mpg .htm(l) .png ...then again slashdot could have a slashdot.slashdot domain.
Re:Abuse of TLDs (Score:5, Insightful)
persontal i want to try and get .local
just so i can fuck with all the small biz NT/AD domain installs out there that doen't use a fully qualified name
as soon as .local is resolvable soooo many people are going to have a bad day
Parent
Why not just languages? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be happy with a TLD system based on language. Why do we need the com/net/org thing anyway. Lets just have something like
http://google.en/ [google.en]
http://google.it/ [google.it]
http://.name.language/ [.name.language]
Re:Why not just languages? (Score:5, Funny)
I think you mean: http://google.en_us/ [google.enus]
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Woohoo (Score:5, Funny)
A flat DNS. Just the way it was always meant to be.
God help us (Score:5, Insightful)
This will only cause more confusion, especially to the average person.
But they get more $ out of the extra registrations, so we know why it *really* happened.
So if McDonald's wanted a TLD... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sorry, I'll show myself out now.
Re:So if McDonald's wanted a TLD... (Score:5, Funny)
that's it, you're banned from the internet..
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I can think of many companies (Score:5, Funny)
that should be restricted to the .con domain.
Re:I can think of many companies (Score:5, Funny)
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Oh no... (Score:5, Informative)
From a technical point of view I see this as a failure. It's putting more weight on on the root name servers, how long until there are 10,000 TLDs, 100,000 of them? a million? Then there's all the people running the TLDs who may or may not have the infrastructure, technical expertise or long-term stability to properly run one.
"free market" != stable, there will be thousands of different ways to register sub-domains, some where registrations will not be allowed, some which cost excessive amounts of money and eventually whole TLDs setup to Google-bomb.
Sure it means people will be able to type in "apple", but what gives one specific company the right over a global use of that trademark name? What about "apple" print design services, "apple" car mechanics all of whom have their own trademarks in that industry.
I'm just an idealist, and would much prefer ".uk.org.mycompany.www" style domains (remember, thats how it was supposed to work in the beginning but somebody fucked up), but all I can see happening from opening up TLDs is annoyance and instability.
I'm not even going to comment on ICANN doing this for the money, capitalist pigs.
I like the idea, frankly (Score:5, Funny)
I don't care if it makes the Internet work like AOL keywords. I don't care if Google, Yahoo!, et al. have to spider inf() more TLDs. I don't care if idiot corporations think they have to buy every version of .m1kr0s0ft and .msf7 out there "just in case". If we can finally get .fuck and .suck, .lol and .is.gay the Internet will finally release its full scientific potential.
More porn.
-l
P.s., Karl Auerbach did experiments showing even BIND could handle umpteen million TLDs.
in many ways, this is good (Score:5, Interesting)
In case anyone wants any facts (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-4-26jun08-en.htm [icann.org]
Back to the future (Score:5, Insightful)
And so it comes full circle. The ancient flat hosts file that the ARPAnet used way back in it's early days, the one that was abandoned in favor of hierarchical DNS because it wasn't possible to manage a flat namespace when the net was a few thousand machines, returns. What, you think the companies that insist on registering every variation of their name in every domain in existence won't insist on having their own TLD too? And we'll be back to hostnames being of the form "ford". And "fordfocus". And "focus". And "myfocus". And "myford". All belonging to Ford Motors. And the inevitable fights when Focus Magazine (a fine-art photography magazine) also wants "focus" and has the trademark to justify getting it just as much as Ford.
Siiiiiigh...
Won't this eventually end up like usenet? (Score:5, Funny)
alt.binaries.go.pound.sand.up.your.ass
comp.sys.obscure.programming.language.that.only.six.remaining.bearded.men.even.remember
can.forsale.illegal.bootleg.dvds.buffy.vampire.slayer
The rich take all? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, I pick a name, and McDeepPockets comes along and thinks, hey, that's a great idea - I'll just take that, thank-you. They "dispute" it, and ICANN's response is... well, if you really can't settle your differences, high bidder gets it. Wow... that's going to make for a pretty mercenary internet.
Problems (Score:5, Interesting)
One innocent word in a language can be an offensive word in another. For exemple, the french word for "seal [wikipedia.org]" is phoque, which is pronounced exactly like you think it is.
And even in the same language, various countries will give totally different meanings to a given word. Think of "lift" -vs- "elevator", "boot" -vs- "trunk" or "crisps" -vs- "chips"...
And it can be even worse; for example, in France, gosses means "children", whereas in Québec, it means "testicles".
Re:Problems (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:more cyber-squatting? (Score:5, Informative)
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