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The Internet

New .tel TLD Now In Use 175

rockwood reports that the .tel top level domain has been deployed, "in a first attempt at pushing the recently approved .tel... The top-level domain .tel was approved by ICANN as a sponsored TLD launching on Wednesday, December 3, 2008 to trademark owners of national effect and on February 3, 2009 to anyone who wishes to apply. Its main purpose is as a single management and publishing point for 'internet communication' services, providing a global contacts directory service by housing all types of contact information directly in the DNS."
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New .tel TLD Now In Use

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  • by Anonymous Coward
  • Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TypoNAM ( 695420 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @01:18PM (#25977805)

    Is anybody else shrugging their shoulders and asking the same question of: What the hell is the point in wasting DNS space for such a half-assed crap idea?

    • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by eldavojohn ( 898314 ) * <eldavojohn@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @01:26PM (#25977899) Journal
      Take a look at what's already out there [google.com]. Mostly over 500 Telnic employees grabbing henry.tel and david.tel. Yawn.

      Its main purpose is as a single management and publishing point for 'internet communication' services ...

      And right from the get-go it's main purpose is overshadowed by some every Telnic employee's desire to be THE Henry on the .tel TLD. That must be awfully helpful to us in our need for 'internet communication' services.

      More garbage for the tubes, I guess.

      What the hell is the point in wasting DNS space

      Are we really concerned about "DNS space?" I guess I'm a bit of an idiot when it comes to why we need to be concerned about 'space' on DNS names ... perhaps you mean IP address space? And if so, people are basically flushing those down the toilet by giving every device one (including their toilet).

      • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by onefriedrice ( 1171917 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @01:52PM (#25978247)
        Perhaps by DNS space he means the fact that organizations who want to register their website under all the TLD's in order to protect their name will have yet another TLD. As the number of domains that point to the same IP address increases, so does the number of pointless DNS requests.
        • "As the number of domains that point to the same IP address increases, so does the number of pointless DNS requests."

          No, they don't. It does increase the number of pointless DNS registers, but not the number of requests. Or once you reach www.example.com will you search out of curiosity if per chance www.example.net does exist too? As a general matter, in order to reach any given resource you launch just one (batch of a) query, no matter how many registers does point to that same resource.

        • There are three basic numbers of gTLDs we can support - a few, a few hundred to few thousand, and near-infinite.

          • Right now we've only got a few, which means that policies are relatively rigid and relatively enforced, and there's not much innovation except at or below 2LD. .museum is about the only gTLD doing anything technically interesting, and otherwise it's just pricing and market segmentation (plus a few leftovers run by the US Government, mostly chaotically.) If you want to innovate, it'll cost you
        • by cgenman ( 325138 )

          why do we have more tld's anyway? Comcast will need both comcast.com and comcast.tel anyway. And the end user experience is the same between "company.tel" and "companytel" with an implied.com.

          Why do we still allow this to happen?

        • by Fred_A ( 10934 )

          As the number of domains that point to the same IP address increases, so does the number of pointless DNS requests.

          I see that I'm not the only one that has set his DNS to try to resolve host.domain.$TLD for each and every $TLD in existence. Then it just picks an address at random and returns it.

          It makes the network much more interesting. So they are *not* pointless requests.

      • Yeah, I know "dur - of course it's a money-grab".. but I really wish that the various organizations involved would just come out and say so as well.. "We will allow any TLD as long as you give us enough money and it doesn't offend governments too much."

        Apart from john.doe.tel - check out friends.jennifer-aniston.hollywood.celebrity.tel .

        Now, it's possible somebody actually registered that (for $$$ - how much $$$ I don't know as you apparently have to sign up first.. whatthe.) but I'm just going to go with t

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by fm6 ( 162816 )

        Take a look at what's already out there. Mostly over 500 Telnic employees grabbing henry.tel and david.tel. Yawn.

        These all seem to follow a template. Obviously Telnic told all its people to create domains to help publicize the product. Teensy little mistake: the pages do nothing to obfuscate personal email addresses. Got spam?

        • Exactly. There is no privacy options. Its one central phone book where people can put all of their contact info. But there is no filter. Might be good for companies, but not individuals who value their privacy and identity.
          • Um... read a bit about it - there is a privacy feature.
            • I did read about it. Read the faq on the website, the article slashdot linked to and a few others, with out seeing any privacy info. The only place I can find information about its privacy blocking features is in the stupid video on telnic's website. Do you have any more information on how privacy is supposed to work, or a link to such information?

              Furthermore, it removes some of its use case to have privacy configuration on a universally accessible directory. It sort of depends if its locked to devices
      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Lumpy ( 12016 )

        MY toilet doesnt need an IP address. NAT is fine...

        but it does twitter...

        11:43 @lumpytoilet -- Dog drinks from bowl
        12:14 @lumpytoilet -- seat put down
        12:28 @lumpytoilet -- FLushed
        12:29 @lumpytoilet -- FLushed
        12:30 @lumpytoilet -- FLushed
        12:31 @lumpytoilet -- FLushed
        12:32 @lumpytoilet -- Plunger RFID detected
        12:33 @lumpytoilet -- Water on floor detected

      • Mostly over 500 Telnic employees grabbing henry.tel and david.tel. Yawn.

        I'm actually looking forward to the more creative uses of .tel like "william.tel", "canyou.tel" "icant.tel", "whocan.tel", etc.

      • Mostly over 500 Telnic employees grabbing henry.tel and david.tel.

        If I had known, I would have picked up WILLIAM.TEL

      • http://celebrity.tel/ [celebrity.tel]

        WTF?

        You can navigate further in that "hierarchy" of shit.

        http://images.gisele-bundchen.models.celebrity.tel/ [celebrity.tel]

        Umm, was this the intended purpose?

      • by homb ( 82455 )

        I'm the henry.tel there...

        I really don't care about the domain name itself. You can have it. (in fact it is available right now). The point is that I don't want people to have obsolete info about me.
        So I need to store it somewhere it's always easily accessible by anyone. Thus the Internet. But I also need to make sure no one stops that service, as this is critical to me. It needs to stay with me hopefully till I die. Thus the need for a TLD.

    • Half-assed indeed (Score:3, Interesting)

      by DesScorp ( 410532 )

      I can understand something like the .XXX tld, for the purpose of openly idenfitying what a site is (and ease in blocking porn sites in school LAN's and such), but otherwise, creating this raft of tld's is a really silly idea. We've just now gotten to the point where most users don't think everything ends in "dot com". The proposed system of hyper-classification won't be a boon to anyone but domain squatters and con artists. And for the non-technical public, it'll be just plain confusing.

      Even as quickly as i

      • I can understand something like the .XXX tld, for the purpose of openly idenfitying what a site is (and ease in blocking porn sites in school LAN's and such)

        Yes, because it is absolutely impossible for anyone to figure out "who is" the owner of a blocked domain name and IP address, and then browse to that host by IP address. Especially teenage children, who demographically are the most inept computer users.

        Seriously, the justification provided for the XXX TLD was not half-assed. As far as ideas go, it was more like an infected blackhead on the surface of an inflamed haemorrhoid attached to the prolapsed sphincter of whatever was left of the ass.

        Frankly, you sho

    • by Dan541 ( 1032000 )

      Icann profits are never a half assed idea

    • by homb ( 82455 )

      You can call it half-assed and crap, but I would contend that DNS is actually totally wasted today. It's a phenomenal distributed data store that's barely used to point a name to a couple of IP addresses.
      With .tel we're actually starting to use the DNS for what it was build for.

      (I work with Telnic)

  • .mobi? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by larry bagina ( 561269 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @01:19PM (#25977809) Journal

    sounds like .mobi. And probably as irrelevant.

    • Re:.mobi? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @02:02PM (#25978387)

      he got a whole TLD to himself? awesome...

    • (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTLD) .mobe was created at the same time as .cat, .jobs, .post, .tel, and .travel.

      imagine owning www.steve.jobs. I vote for a .koelker gTLD ;)

      On a less serious note, imagine www.lol.cat...

  • by MosesJones ( 55544 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @01:19PM (#25977815) Homepage

    Brilliantly "I CANN but I shouldn't" manages to win the dumbest, stupidest, most pointless idea of the whole sodding year.

    I mean just having a "standard" of I don't know VCF and using MIMEtypes from a web page would give you the ability to do this sort of connectivity address book stuff within the existing infrastructure. Now the idea is that everyone should register an equivalent .tel (errrr how do they do that when there are different companies at the .com, .net, .org, .co.uk, .fr etc addresses).

    Quite astonishingly badly stupid and I applaud their genius by making sure it will be in everyone's mind as the "worst idea of 2008" is compiled. The only person who might be happy about this is the 2000-2007 undisputed winning partnership of Bush/Cheney for their "Threatening China", "What Torture?" "What WMD?" "Mission Accomplished", "What problems in Iraq?" and many other household favourites.

    As my mother said "Just because 'you can' doesn't mean 'you should'". I propose a name change to ICANN to "Please god no we can't be trusted with this responsibility"

  • too late (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    all these one-roof TLDs would maybe have been worth something if they were there from the beginning. But everyone wants a .com because everything on the interwebz is a www.*.com or .org for organizations as if it lent credence to their validity. It's just far too late now and serves little use, and practically no guarantee of homogeneity.

  • by theilliterate ( 1381151 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @01:20PM (#25977841)
    "dontaskdottel"
  • Uh, what? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @01:21PM (#25977843) Journal
    How is that meant to work? I already use existing domain names for 'Internet communication' services, like email and IM. I can already use DNS to map telephone numbers to these with RFC 2916 or map arbitrary domains to them with RFC 2915. So, what exactly, is the point of .tel?
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      So, what exactly, is the point of .tel?

      The point is to make money for the registrars, of course, since now every major web site will have to register foo.tel to go along with foo.com, foo.org, foo.biz, foo.info,......

      • Re:Uh, what? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Kent Recal ( 714863 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @02:12PM (#25978511)

        Aren't we beyond the point of "must own every tld in existence" by now?

        I lived through that in my old company. They literally wanted all TLDs, not only for the primary name but also for most spelling mistakes. And for country-specific spelling mistakes (french people might make different mistakes than english people).

        Consequently they had 1-2 fulltime employees doing nothing but domain registration and babysitting. Yes, domains do need babysitting when you're literally owning thousands of them from all countries of the world. Ever deciphered a russian expiry notice? Or tried to establish an office in some arabic country only so that you are allowed to buy a domain from them?

        Long story short: Most sane businesses should have realized by now that they really only need the standard set (.com/.net/.org), plus the country TLDs for the countries where they're actually doing business. Everything else is wasted money. If someone squats your name on some obscure foreign TLD then so what? Ignore them or sue them into oblivion (trademark!) if they try to pull off scams in your name.

        • by Ihmhi ( 1206036 )

          Most sane businesses should have realized by now that they really only need the standard set (.com/.net/.org),

          plus the country TLDs for the countries where they're actually doing business.

          What about expansion, though?

          What if there's a company that is currently US-only but may want to expand to other countries such as France, Japan, Germany, etc.?

          If they buy the TLDs for those countries, okay, maybe they waste a few bucks a year per domain if they don't use them anytime soon.

          Imagine if there was no yourbusiness.co.jp because they never operated in Japan before. Get popular enough, and that domain goes from $10 to $1,000 or more. That $1,000 could buy at least 100 domains for a year.

          • Well, it obviously depends on the business we talk about and the likelyhood of them expanding to japan.
            If a country is on your definate roadmap then, by all means, get the domain early.

            Ofcourse there's also no reason to buy the domains of the 10 or so most important countries, just in case.

            Just keep it in proportion. My former company is literally spending tens of thousands of dollars yearly, on domains that they'll never use.
            Many foreign domains are fairly expensive, ranging from hundred bucks a year up to

        • Most sane businesses should have realized by now that they really only need the standard set (.com/.net/.org), plus the country TLDs for the countries where they're actually doing business.

          I really cannot comprehend why one would want a ccTLD. com/net/org work just fine. In fact com/org are all we need, anything else is not needed IMO. Is it so difficult to set up a com/org and put a menu or homepage there asking the user the language and geography they want to use? For direct access use language/geography subdomains like en.example.org. Internet is supposed to be a world-wide medium, so I really see no value in maintaining domain names limiting you to a specific geography. Internet is

  • Enum (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Imagix ( 695350 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @01:22PM (#25977869)
    Uh, didn't this used to be called Enum? (e164.arpa.)?
    • Yes.. and why do I even bother having me@example.com coming through to my VoIP phone wherever I am, along with email and OpenID? SRV and MX records are doing nicely for now.

      So tell me, why again do we need .tel?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by byolinux ( 535260 ) *
    • by Qzukk ( 229616 )

      Uh, didn't this used to be called Enum? (e164.arpa.)?

      Given a phone number, ENUM told you how to reach that person. .tel seems to be a hierarchy, (badly) organized by names, occupations, locations, and whatever else they felt like using to answer the same question when you don't have the phone number.

  • I could be wrong, but this sounds very similar to the purpose of the .net TLD! Why so many new useless TLDs?
  • by Farmer Pete ( 1350093 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @01:27PM (#25977911)
    As if we don't have enough TLD's already...

    I think the part that gets me the most angry is, have you ever tried to tell someone your email address over the phone when it doesn't end in com/org/edu? My company was apparently late to market with their webpage, so we have a 20 character dot com address and an incredibly short .biz address. I used to choose the .biz because I thought it would be simple for people to understand. I'm very careful to enunciate my letters, but these people are clueless. No matter how much I tell them B as in Bravo, I as in Indiana, Z as in Zebra, they end up with DIC...Seriously, if there even was a .dic TLD, would you want to be there???
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

      As if we don't have enough TLD's already

      Can you get your last name.com or .anything? I snagged mcgrew.info when .info frst came ou, but let it lapse. I doubt seriously I could get it back.

      IMO we have no where near enough TLDs.

      • Can you get your last name.com or .anything? I snagged mcgrew.info when .info frst came ou, but let it lapse. I doubt seriously I could get it back.

        Well, we already have .name [wikipedia.org] for that sort of thing.

    • Seriously, if there even was a .dic TLD, would you want to be there???

      \

      I'm sure grammar/spelling fascists would find it appealing.

    • Seriously, if there even was a .dic TLD, would you want to be there???
      I wouldn't want to be there but I can think of several people I would recommend to be moved...
    • by Luyseyal ( 3154 )

      Hell, it's even worse now that every two-bit wannabe mail administrator thinks he can block .info because "nobody uses it but spammers". I've talked with these people. They're like "get a gmail account. It's free." Free -- sure, but nevermind the investment I've made in having nice, short contact info. If you hadn't broken your mail system, I wouldn't have to go to this extra effort to deal with your idiocy.

      -l

    • I would be very wary about doing business with someone who had a .biz domain in a way I wouldn't with a .com, as .biz tends to be used by spammers and scammers.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • loldomains (Score:4, Funny)

    by w0mprat ( 1317953 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @01:33PM (#25977981)
    ICANNhas.cheezburger?
  • by girlintraining ( 1395911 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @01:34PM (#25978001)

    I think we should register the .WTF TLD and use it as a "parody TLD for anyone who wants to mock a trademark"

  • Wow, I don't know if they could be more clueless if they tried. Last month they announced that they want to start selling new gTLDs, and now, in the wake of the widespread presence of bad data in DNS, they are announcing a TLD for more DNS data?

    What problem are they trying to solve here?
  • Wikipedia entry (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Am I the only one who thinks the Wikipedia entry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.tel - reads like a Telnic (sponsor of the TLD) press release, complete with obligatory positive quotes?

    Industry experts were positive to the demonstrations, with comments in blogs including author of Net Attitude[5] and founder member of the W3C John R. Patrick stated "I think this will be a big deal."

  • Given that the purported usage of .tel is for non-mail applications, all mail from ".tel" should be blocked. Don't even accept a SMTP connection.

    • That is incorrect. .tel specifically allows for MX records to be created in the second level .tel zone.

      However, the biggest difference between this TLD and all others is that no A or AAAA records are allowed, unless they point to the TelNic webservers.

      So you can run your own email under .tel, but not your own website.

  • in.tel is mine and those bastards can pry it from my cold, dead fingers. Or, cough up a million bucks. I thought about taking AMD.tel, but it just doesn't have the same appeal.
  • If I got a .tel would I be required to use it as prescribed, or would I be free to put whatever I like? The current example pages remind me of those placeholder pages the squatters use, and based on that I expect this will be a sea of noninformation by the end of next year. [largeco.tel]

  • They also created the .sho domain.
  • What a racket (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bertie ( 87778 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @02:45PM (#25978965) Homepage

    1. Come up with new TLD
    2. Watch corporations flock to register theirname.tel because they can't afford for squatters to get there first
    3. ??
    4. Profit!

    Repeat every time you feel the need for a new revenue stream.

    Nice work if you can get it.

  • by Ilyakub ( 1200029 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @03:13PM (#25979391)
    .name [wikipedia.org] has been active since 2001, for the very same purpose. It's not very popular.
    • .name is just for "personal name-based" domain names, with no specific rules on what data is provided through such a domain name. It's supposed to be some sort of a personal web site, but it does not need to be. This .tel thing is different - it's point is to encode your personal information, in a strictly defined format, directly in the DNS entry for your domain. So it's more like a vCard database on top of DNS.

      I still don't understand why it is supposed to be a good idea, though.

  • I want the domain 'domain.tld' so badly...*sigh*

  • So I looked up costs for pre-ordering from Netfirms.ca and it was $379 for 3 years. Quite comparable, don't you think?

/earth: file system full.

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