The Beginnings of a TLD Free-For-All? 489
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."
Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Now I can finally realize my dream and create the ".isgay" TLD.
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Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Dibs on .slashdot
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God DAMMIT!! You fucking squatter POS!
So Ummmmmm...... I'll give you $50 bucks for it. $100? $200? Come on!
Seriously name your price :)
Re:DIBS!!!! round 2 (Score:5, Funny)
wtf.FTW!
Worse (Score:5, Insightful)
It's worse. What they are proposing is nothing less than the total elimination of the current DNS and replacing it with AOL keywords. And raising the price a hundredfold while they are at it. And making sure it stays centralized under ICANN's control by cutting out the national registrars.
Within six months of going live .com will be but a memory as every entity with enough budget to buy bandwidth to actually run a server on buys their own TLD, or keyword. Ford.com becomes ford. google.com becomes google, mail.google.com probably becomes googlemail or mail.google, assuming they don't just outbid every other webmail company and just have 'email' or 'mail.' Just send to userid@email.
And domains will all be to the highest bidder with ICANN getting the money instead of domain squatters. Old legacy domains will be taken as a sign of a cheap bastard who can't afford a 'real' name.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Here is why I think you are wrong. .US TLD used to be run before '02; I would go into details on that, but when I went to wikipedia it was...wrong.
I've been trying to read up on this, because I'm sort of puzzled as to how, exactly, they are planning to do this.
What I think they are doing is something similar to the way that
What I can see them doing is leaving the primary nameservers alone, and just adding a pointer to the registrar of the new TLD's; when a user surfs in, depending on how their DNS is set up
Re:Sweet (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, but when google.search redirects to msn.search (especially in a sneaky, but not trademark infringy way), people will start to use it more and more. And as custom TLD's become more and more commonplace, less people will think of .com or .co.[country code] as the standard. .com's will become much like .net's or .org's.
What ICANN really messed up with was the TLD concept reading backwards. It should be tld.domain.www, or com.google.mail, com.google.search, com.google.etc. It confuses a lot of people to have the order the other way. And now, if TLD's spread like this, suddenly there are tons of people with .mail etc. that can all look more realistic than mail.google.com.
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Even better, I'm going to register .corn Imagine going to google.corn! In some fonts it looks like google.com. Even better www.somebank.corn!!! Yeah! I'll be rich!
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"What ICANN really messed up with was the TLD concept reading backwards. It should be ... com.google.etc. It confuses a lot of people to have the order the other way. "
Yeah, look at all the confused people typing in "com.google."
Seriously, the ordering is just a convention. It can go either way as long as it does so consistently.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Good job. You, like I, am a geek and understand this. My mother does not understand that [subdomain].her-bank.com is still her bank, and made me drive over because she was convinced that there was malware on her computer. No one types in "com.google", but most people don't understand that, at least theoretically, "google.com" and "microsoft.com" have more in common than "google.net" and "microsoft.net".
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Actually they followed a convention, which I believe most countries follow.
The postal convention. Think of how you address a letter.
Most Specific
Next most specific
next most
least
get it?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You realize that the "postal convention" is broken onto seperate lines? And that partway through it doesn't suddenly get more specific ("slashdot.com/comments.pl" is "2.1/3" as far as general to specific goes)? That "postal convention" was designed to put the recipient first (since mail is to a recipient rather than a location, which is why it is illegal to open mail that came to your address under a different name; and why mail forwarding works), and the rest is only routing information? That's why use
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
True. Either way, aslong as it's consistent.
The most-significant part could be at either end, aslong as it's consistent.
Except with URLs it's not. The most significant part is in the MIDDLE which is plainly braindead.
http://3.2.1/4/5 [3.2.1]
That look like a sensible arrangement to anyone ?
Atleast with email it's 3@2.1 so in a sequence, though the oposite one from the one we -normally- use.
US dates share the same sillyness. day-month-year is fine, as is year-month-day, but whoever decided on putting the least-signi
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
I fervently pray for your dream to come to true. I really do.
So umm, do you need a captain of the guard in your royal court? Would he get to mess around with the jester too?
Just askin'.
Any applications to fill out? Hello?
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
You know, I am really tired of silly, childish, and unrealistic posts by immature child-like idiots on /.
Fortunately, this isn't one of them. I for one, welcome you, my consumer-rage TLD overlord.
Make sure you give him the little stick with bells and a tiny Ballmer-puppet head.
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The problem with your ".isgay" TLD is that it can go both ways, just like Captain Jack. (Yes, pun intended - it was way too easy.)
Either way, there's profit...
To some, having a "myname".isgay would be horrible, and they would pay to have it removed or to take ownership from it and make it look like it isn't real.
To others (e.g. Captain Jack) it would be a badge of honour and thus subject to the same domain-squatting issues as other "desirable" domain names.
Either way, you'll be rich. Good luck!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
1. IRC backchannel - irc://chat.icann.org#icann-general-discussion
2. Twitter feed - http://twitter.com/netfreedom [twitter.com]
3. At Large (user) advisory committee - http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.org [icann.org]
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.thatswhatshesaid
Worst idea ever (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Worst idea ever (Score:5, Informative)
When was the last time a multi-million dollar corporation was embarrassed about anything?
Corporations are just like people, except, you know, completely different.
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They can buy them and have them resolve to nothing, or they can let someone else buy them and have them resolve to hardcore pornography.
Not buying them is a lot more embarrassing.
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"With a name like Painful Rectal Itch, it has to be good."
--Saturday Night Live skit, late 1970s(?)
I bet Smuckers thought that was just HILARIOUS.
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Re:Worst idea ever (Score:4, Informative)
They should visit film.disney.com, kids.disney.com, and fun.disney.com. The DNS works backwards, and people should learn that just as they learn how an email address works and how to work web forms.
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Re:Worst idea ever (Score:5, Interesting)
Generally it is true that it wouldn't be an issue if two companies with the same name are in different industries. However, in this case it would be a problem, because of Disney's widespread brand recognition.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in 2000 sued the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and successfully forced them to change their name. They had an agreement in which the wrestling federation could use the initials, but it was determined there was some violation of that agreement.
And the last time I checked the World Wildlife Fund hasn't gotten into professional wrestling.
Re:Worst idea ever (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Worst idea ever (Score:5, Insightful)
Disney already has registered TLDs for the localized versions of it's site for other regions and any further categorical distinctions for content can be accomplished with subdomains. There's not really any need for Disney or any other large corps to make use of unique TLDs. While this doesn't stop spammers from setting up their own dubious TLDs and trying to lure people there, after a few publicized incidents of scams I think it would become fairly common knowledge that people should stick to trusting
Re:Worst idea ever (Score:4, Insightful)
Great observation. That is exactly why any TLD that is not .COM automatically has to have less value. .ORG has slightly less value since that is seen as charitable and foundations, but .NET is even a little suspect in most cases.
Once you move farther away from .COM you see progressively less and less value to the point that the only value left is one of speculation.
Hence, this new development is a squatters paradise. This might be a good thing then.
We can strictly regulate squatting on the .COM's and let all the squatters speculate and have their market of illusions (delusions really) on any other randomly created TLD :)
Re:Worst idea ever (Score:5, Funny)
I would suspect .con would see some value for typosquatters as well.
But, at least that TLD would be an accurate description...
Re:Worst idea ever (Score:5, Funny)
Moving away from that original intent, it's become ingrained in most casual user's minds that this is the obligatory suffix of a typical web address. .net and .org are only sightly as recognizable as additional suffixes.
Exactly. That's why I always visit slashdot.com, I know it's the real Slashdot. That .org site is an obvious scam, filled with pointless 'news' links and inane comments.
Re:Worst idea ever (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.regular-expressions.info/ [regular-expressions.info] is actually quite a useful site.
Re:Worst idea ever (Score:5, Funny)
I think it'd actually be fitting for phishing sites to be using .con.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Or they can just create .disney TLD and ignore the subdomains of other TLDs. Just like anyone can create disney.somedomain.com and it will be of no interest to them.
Re:Worst idea ever (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, this isn't the worst idea ever, at least for ICANN. Extortion it is, but extortion isn't really a bad idea if you're the one doing it, else it wouldn't be so popular.
However, opening the TLD floodgates doesn't help anyone other than ICANN and the registrars. Additional TLD's which are functionally equivalent to the existing TLD's are not useful. Additional TLD's are useful with respect to any exclusivity they enforce. .com, .net, .org, are all functionally equivalent these days. .edu, .gov, and .mil are actually, in fact, useful. They are useful specifically because I can't get one. The proposed .bank had some hope of being useful, although it suffers from the endemic problem of appointing someone or some organization to decide for the whole world, what constitutes a bank. .xxx or .porn has some hope of being useful, because it is self-exclusive in that there's somewhat of a disincentive to having a .porn domain if you are not, in fact, in the business of providing porn.
Of course, nothing useful will come to pass. It's too tempting to sell domains to everyone, and the useful things that could be done with TLD's could be done with SLD's as well, but aren't. It would be useful, for example, to have a company that already does work in the field of corporate information such as Dunn & Bradstreet, to start offering "vetted" corporate listings, such as "yourcompanyhere".dnb.com. But they don't do it, because a) it wouldn't really be all that useful, and b) because very few people would use it and thus c) very few companies would buy it.
Re:Worst idea ever (Score:4, Informative)
For many companies in denmark, for example, the NAME.dk domain is more important than the NAME.com...as
Re:More TLD's Then (Score:4, Funny)
3rd post & (Score:5, Funny)
what is wrong with you people?!
Bad Idea....Bad Bad Bad (Score:2)
If domain squatting, front running, and everything else of the like has taught us anything its that this is a bad bad bad! Idea.
Never mind the levels of confusion it would be creating.
Re:Bad Idea....Bad Bad Bad (Score:5, Interesting)
Never mind the levels of confusion it would be creating.
Especially when I start registering common file extensions, like .exe, .bat, .jpg, .txt...
Re:Bad Idea....Bad Bad Bad (Score:5, Funny)
I expect Commander Taco to register http://slashdot.dot/ [slashdot.dot] immediately upon its availability.
ICANN should make domains more expensive (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Assuming how much money they spend remains the same and that domains are roughly $10 to register (+ or -), instead of registering thousands, they will registers fourties.
Layne
Re:ICANN should make domains more expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
For any vaguely competent squatter, ads and possible sale of the domain would still make up for most of even that cost, so they wouldn't suffer at all.
Re:ICANN should make domains more expensive (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, that would limit domain names to basically the corporate-only world, since how many private individuals would pay that much just to have their blog or family website at its own name?
You want to get rid of squatters? Simple:
1) Elimintate "tasting" completely.
2) Require an actual site (not just a page of ads) go live at any give address within 30 days.
That would, however, reduce the registrars' profits, so you'll never see them happen.
Re:ICANN should make domains more expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
address within 30 days.
I'd rather not have a registrar deciding whether or not to revoke my domain name registration just because they didn't think the content was non-trivial.
Re:ICANN should make domains more expensive (Score:5, Interesting)
You missed
3) Prohibit exchange of domain names. Don't want one? Let it expire and it goes back into the pool. No, you can't sell it, any more than you can sell your telephone number.
But again, this wouldn't benefit the registrars, so it won't happen.
Re:ICANN should make domains more expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
That idea falls apart when you start dealing with 'internet properties'. For example, my company owns .com and is going to build out a portal on it. Down the road, we may want to sell that to another company that already has an interest in the market.
With your idea, we would be unable to actually transfer that domain name to the company, essentially tying ourselves to them in perpetuity, and requiring them to rely on us not going out of business. Bad idea.
Re:ICANN should make domains more expensive (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree with you. What you suggest is similar to what is required outside of "cyberspace".
However, the 30 days part is a little short. Perhaps even 6 months would be short. It seems you want a real substantive site, and sometimes getting the domain name first is an integral part of the business plan. Getting funding can take even longer, which is sometimes required to get a functional site online.
Requiring that the DNS is not parked, and is in use by an actual server which gives up a page describing your site with contact information and a construction link might be enough.
However, Web sites are not the only services which are used by a domain name either. I actually have plenty of domain names that are only used for email and other services too.
So I like your idea, but you would have to carefully consider what are the requirements of a domain being considered "live".
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
#1 is good, #2 sounds good on paper but would be hard to enforce (would Google just be a "page of ads"?)
I'd add #3: increase the ICANN registration fee for each additional domain being created at once by $0.05 for the first 10, then $1.00 for the next 100, then $10.00 for each one after that. It would have negligible effect on anyone but squatters, and would have the added bonus of helping to fund ICANN. Squatters could still register on the cheap, just not tens of thousands of domains at once.
Generic TLDs caused the problems (Score:5, Insightful)
It's OK if the TLDs are brands (not generic like com, net or org) and there is some factor which limits them to resale use (otherwise we just punt the .com problem up a level.)
The big mistake was having generics in the first place. Trademark law figured out hundreds of years ago you don't grant people monopoly ownership rights in generic terms. To get ownership rights in a term it must be non-generic, not have meaning other than the meaning you created in it. Thus nobody owns the word "Apple" with regards to fruits, but you can own it with regard to computers, or records. Even better are made-up terms like Xerox and Kodak.
Anyway, we goofed by selling things like drugstore.com. We should fix that where we can, and not make it worse. If names are for resale only (you can't have your own sites in a TLD you own except for nic.TLD) and the names can't have any meaning for you to get a monopoly, then it can work.
Things like .xxx and .mobi and there rest are bad because they have a meaning, and grant a monopoly in internet naming to that meaning.
Full details are at http://www.templetons.com/brad/dns/ [templetons.com]
Re:Generic TLDs caused the problems (Score:5, Insightful)
The other part of the reason why this is potentially a bad idea is technical. The DNS scales very well because it's a tree. Hardly anyone queries the root servers (a couple of years ago 95% of queries were answered with NXDOMAIN) because their ISPs caching name servers store the locations of the most common TLDs (.com, .org, .cctld, etc.). The load is then spread around the TLD servers (and, again, most common queries are cached). Adding new TLDs increases the number of hits on the root servers, which makes those 14 machines a lot more critical, which is probably what ICANN is trying to do.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I doubt that there are only 14 machines handling all root server requests for the entire world. I'm almost certain that each IP address goes to a load-balancing machine that controls a farm of servers. As you say, this scheme would result in far more use of those servers, meaning that the farms would have to be expanded.
ICANN showing their irrelevance (Score:5, Interesting)
The only good that could potentially come from this would be if the spammers found it worthwhile to start placing all their spamvertised domains under TLDs like
But we all know how likely that is..
DNS has failed anyway (Score:2)
Focus on country code. (Score:4, Insightful)
Let each country manage its own servers.
Does anyone in the USofA really care if Britain allows sitename.xxx.uk ?
Does anyone in Germany care that there is a sitename.mobile.us ?
All the .com and .org and .net and ... were okay when the Internet was tiny and mostly USofA only. But it showed a complete lack of forward planning. Decentralize the names. Let each country work it out. Particularly for the countries using alphabets that don't match 100% with USofA English.
Re:Focus on country code. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:DNS has failed anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, I don't know about you but I'm find just memorizing IP addresses.
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I don't know! WAAAAAAARGGHHH!
Pointless (Score:4, Insightful)
This will have one and only one useful effect - It will add more TLDs we can safely block as spam sources (yeah, suuuure we see a lot of legit
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or maybe we should just get rid of the entire second tier of domain names altogether. Why bother having .org or .com when you can just have .slashdot or .disney (to use some common examples from this discussion)?
From a user interface perspective, I can see a lot of value in this. Asking people to remember if a site is a .org or a .com or a .net was probably a mistake to begin with.
From an administrative perspective, it seems to open a big can of worms. The current TLD divisions at least have some sort of
I cannot wait... (Score:5, Funny)
http://first.post
Wait - I've got a MUCH better idea... (Score:4, Funny)
I've had it with this hugely confusing system of names and TLDs, so here's my proposal:
We drop DNS completely and establish a completely numerical system of finding things on the internet. Each machine will just get a simple number. No more wondering what everything is called - just type in the number and presto - you're there! No fighting, no trademarks, no registrations, just "Here's your number pal, have fun."
Should work fine - right?
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Re:Wait - I've got a MUCH better idea... (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, maybe I'm giving the moderators too much credit. After all, why was your post modded troll? On second thought, maybe the moderators are smoking something today.
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Just 'rm /etc/resolv.conf' and you're done.
Re:Wait - I've got a MUCH better idea... (Score:4, Informative)
There were a could of crazy schemes to add letters to the phone dial pad--but could you image how complex and confusing that would be! If you're older than 35, when you were growing up do you remember anyone looking for the letters on the dial.
And in my day, we had real dials on the phone--none this fancy DTMF stuff for us.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nah, people will want certain numbers and not want others. East Asians won't want numbers with "4" in them as they're unlucky. Christian nutjobs won't want 666, the number of the Beast. Script kiddies will want 1337.
And the first to go? (Score:2)
.fuck, .blow and everything else about sex, you know.
Worthless (Score:5, Insightful)
For every new TLD that gets created it just adds that many more TLDs that company has to buy to cover their trademark, company name whatever.
This is just ridiculous.
www.compaq.xyz has zero value. I never even understood why .net was created either. I can understand .ORG, and maybe even .INFO, but not .NET.
This only creates whole new markets for domain squatters. Who gives a crap about .MOBI? I certainly don't. I don't see any major wireless carriers using it on a regular basis. The mobile blackberry website I go to is still a .COM
This is made all the more ridiculous by the fact the most people have a hard time differentiating between TLDs as it is. Even I have problems sometimes and put a .COM when it should be a .NET. The fact that those 2 websites are wholly different entities is just crazy.
This is all about money going into the pockets of some people, and nothing about adding value to the Internet.
There are only two, and will forever be only two, TLDs which have any value associated with them whatsoever.... .COM and .ORG. That's it. Everything else is reserved anyways, and you can substitute a country TLD for .COM and .ORG when appropriate.
For those that would argue that point, ask yourselves honestly.... when you think of a domain name which TLD do you think of putting after it first?
Re:Worthless (Score:5, Informative)
I use it to point to my home NETWORK. While I would like to have
Re:Worthless (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Worthless (Score:5, Informative)
It took years for
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www.compaq.xyz has zero value. I never even understood why .net was created either. I can understand .ORG, and maybe even .INFO, but not .NET.
You forgot all about .edu .gov and .mil, all of which are TLDs actually run correctly (gasp, imagine that) and are limited like they all are supposed to be.
Back in the day it was intended that if you were not a registered business, you wouldnt be allowed to get a .com .com the 'default' and leave .org restricted.
That didn't work well, and they decided to make
They ma
Re:Worthless (Score:4, Insightful)
I know that the USA owns the Internet, but in a perfect world, the .mil, .gov, .edu, etc TLDs should be .mil.us, .gov.us, and .edu.us respectively.
Re:Worthless (Score:4, Informative)
I disagree with the harmless part. This could be used for phishing and spamming.
Imagine "customer.service08@paypal.comm". If the TLDs are truly opened up then paypal.comm will actually be real.
Of course you already have this problem with domain typos and deliberate obfuscation, but this will exacerbate the problem. So it is not completely harmless, and in some instances not completely opt-in either.
I can see your point about businesses not having to buy these new TLDs, but think about this from a business perspective. If you have even more than a couple hundred thousand dollars in sales per year, what is an extra $200-$300 dollars to grab the most popular TLD's to lock up your domain name?
Spammers, etc. will LOVE this (Score:5, Insightful)
This sort of thing would be a godsend for spammers & phishers. It'd make it so much easier for them to forge websites to try to scam people. Just imagine creating a TLD that's something like "comm" instead of "com" or "C0M" (zero instead of oh), etc. It'll create a security nightmare out of what is already a major pain in the @ss.
Re:Spammers, etc. will LOVE this (Score:5, Funny)
I thought the obvious TLD for phishers was .con
Oh no. (Score:3, Informative)
That said - if this is implemented as written I also foresee a rush towards all short words of the English language and a subsequent loss of all mnemonic devices I use to remember websites:
Now: "Hey, I want to go to Amazon. That's amazon.com, right?"
Then: "I want to go to Newbookstore. That's newbookstore.books - no, wait, newbookstore.cheapbooks - or newbookstore.bestbookstore? Newbookstore.isgreat? Newbookstore.all? Newbookstore.shopping? Newbookstore.AAA?"
Granted, the current TLD system kinda sucks, but opening up all kinds of words as possible TLDs will certainly bring no improvement (one thing I like to do when I browse for a product's availability here in Germany is enter the search term into google with the added restriction "site:.de". When German online presences will end in dozens if not hundreds of different words this easy way to identify them will be lost...).
Usenet-Like naming system (Score:3, Insightful)
Anybody thought about using a co-opted naming system such as used for Newsgroups ?
Think about it....
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
slashdot.bork.bork.bork.bork.bork.bork.bork.bork.bork ?
How it might work... (Score:3, Interesting)
I wouldn't be surprised if ICANN made the rule that your 2nd level name aliases the TLD. So Disney.com would also own *.disney.
TLDs would no longer be categories, they'd just be the site name. http://ilovecats http://cnn http://teslamotors
Makes sense to me.
They should make it a reflection of .com (Score:3, Interesting)
They should simply make it a reflection of .com. If you own abcde.com you, and only you, are entitled to abcde TLD. There are couple hiccups with other tlds... but that could be resovlved:
So if you have dotcom, and leaving .com off won't conflict with an existing TLD, you can pay another X$ fee and get it as a TLD. If you don't pay the fee, you don't get it, but nobody else can get it either.
No massive influx of squatter problems, trademark problems, spammer problems etc. PennyArcade.com and only pennyarcade.com can get the PennyArcade TLD, CocaCola.com can get cocacola, microsoft.com can get microsoft... intel.com can get intel, ibm.com can get ibm.
And ca.com, us.com, com.com can't get ca, us, and com respectively. They'll live.
The idea of organizational TLDs was a mistake from the get-go. If we could just get rid of them entirely I'd advocate that. But due to conflicts between legitimate .net / .org / .com sites that's not really practical.
So lets just do second best, and give the vast majority of .com's the option of leaving off the .com.
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Misquoted by the BBC (Score:5, Informative)
Firstly, the interviewer started under the misapprehension that domain names were running out, which Dr. Twomey corrected, and said the problem was with IPv4 addresses. The following comments then followed, which concern the introduction of IPv6:
The comments he actually made about DNS and TLDs were much tamer, mainly relating to internationalization and the use of unicode URLs.
I listened to this while driving, so I may have misunderstood slightly, but there was definitely no sense of "OMG TLD free-for-all" in the interview as broadcast.
Legacy names grandfathered? (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems to me that the current holders of legacy names in the flat namespace of UUCP Mailnet, who have retained their legacyname.tld counterparts in .com, .edu, .net, or .gov, should be able to get them as TLDs, and free of charge, as a continuation of the legacy.
Failing that they should have first refusal.
These names in this flat namespace predate the ICANN. They were also transferred intact into the electronic mail routing during the conversion to domain-style addressing. (Indeed, at some sites you can still get mail to them by addressing it to user@legacyname, and at many more by addressing it to legacyname!user.)
Public comment opens today, closes tomorrow. (Score:5, Informative)
ICAAN released a final draft for public comment today, June 22, 2008. [icann.org]
Public comment closes June 23, 2008.
Oh, registrars will love this. (Score:4, Insightful)
So expect the registrars to get behind this quickly and completely. It'll make their cash registers ring, as typosquatters try to register variants of well-known domains and sell them to phishers, and legitimate domain owners race to beat them to it. In the end, a large amount of money will flow to registrars, every TLD except a few gTLDs and the ccTLDs will be blacklisted by default, and lots of people will own worthless domains that nobody really wants.
And ICANN will congratulate itself on a job well done.
dot parody (Score:3, Interesting)
Under US law, parody isn't copyright infringement. So how about copying just about everything in *.com, doing a regex to replace certain words with obscenities, and reposting it as *.parody?
Then when you search, why shouldn't Google assume you're as likely looking for the parody as The Real Thing?
Now I feel stupid (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Eight equals D?
I thought D equaled 13...