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New TLDs On The Way From ICANN
ChrisBennett writes: "ICANN has just suggested a policy for introducing new Top Level Domains. This policy will be considered at the ICANN meeting on July 15-16, 2000 in Yokohama, Japan. I guess we'll be seeing the .rob and .dot TLDs that CmdrTaco wanted after all."
Jesus wept. Just when I think they can't get any dumber!
They are going to turn DNS into WINS. From a heirarchical naming system into a flat naming system. They must be stopped!
The ICANN / Registrar DNS diatribe
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We've been hearing about new TLDs for, oh, at least an eternity. Maybe even two.
.net, .org, .ca ,.xxx, .god and whatever other .tlds are available?
And let's face it: all so-called corporate names will be immediately obtained and/or sued-for by their so-called owners; and all remaining sensible names will be immediately obtained and camped-on by the domain name resellers.
You and I, who may have need for a website six months from now, are *ALWAYS* going to be screwed: the name we'd have used is gone.
And even if you do manage to get the DNS you wanted -- www.borsht.??? -- who the hell's ever going to find it? www.borsht.com is gone (to a domain name camping asshole, of course), and who's ever going to have patience to try
The ONLY solution is to bag this silly-ass naming system and come up with something that allows people to type in a more unique, descriptive name that isn't duplicated umpteen times over with the most minor of variations...
Rant, roar.
www.borsht.com for sale. My god.
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Wonderful. More TLDs. That's a lousy answer to a problem that isn't the real problem. Two strikes at once. Great job.
/ (the root, C:\ for Windows folks), you shouldn't try and put every entity in the universe under .COM.
.COM domains. Make people use the system put in place to solve this problem over ten years ago.
Here is why it is the wrong answer: It won't work. Right now, companies (and squatters) register foo.com, foo.net, and foo.org, "just to make sure" they have all the bases covered. All this is going to do is make Network Solutions and the other registrars more money.
The real problem is that everybody is trying to map a virtually infinite number of items (i.e., the known universe, as far as the Internet is concerned) into a limited namespace (English words and phrases less then 64 characters long). Anyone with half a brain can tell you that is a solution that is inherently unscalable.
The only way to make a system like this scalable is to switch to a hierarchical system. Just like you don't put every file (or directory) on a system under
There are two hierarchies I can think of: By category, and by location.
By category would mean that instead of microsoft.com, we would get microsoft.software.computers.com or something. Basically, use a Yahoo!(TM)-style structure to structure the Domain Name System.
There are three problems with this approach that make it unworkable. First, who gets to decide the categories, and what category a given site falls under? Is this slashdot.talk.org or slashdot.computers.com or slashdot.geeks.culture.rec.com or what?
Second, the administrative overhead of all this sorting would be prohibitively high. Registering a domain should not require a six-month background check.
Third, and most importantly, you can still have name collisions in a particular field, so long as they are geographically seperated. There must be an "Atlas Auto Body" in every county in New Hampshire. So who gets atlas.bodyshops.auto.com?
No, the only method that will scale with reality is to model the DNS after reality: Physical location. There are already existing mechanisms to make sure there aren't two Atlas Auto Body shops in Concord, NH. So make the domain atlasautobody.concord.nh.us, and the problem is solved.
Yes, it does mean Microsoft would be microsoft.redmond.wa.us. But such is life. People already remember names, addresses, phone numbers, and other things with much less sense then this.
Not coincidentally, the mechanism to do this is already in place. Just nobody uses it.
My solution? Don't add new TLDs. In fact, don't add new 2LD (Second Level Domains) either. No more new
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
While I think that the inclusion of new TLDs is a good idea, I am against anything that is too finely done.
.protest domain. You are one of the vendors of filtering and blocking software. Anything against the norm? Why not just block .protest. Same goes for companies and/or oppressive governments with nasty firewalls.
Imagine, a
The move toward more TLDs is a good thing. We just need to be sure that we don't make it too easy to filter out "undesirable" speech.
-Chris
But how do you "require" anyone on the net to do anything at all?
As soon as you start limiting what content can be put on each domain, the internet as we know it is gone.
LL
"If you are falling, dive." -Joseph Campbell
I would've thought it would have been Microsoft who'd be asking for a .rob TLD. You know, right up there with .rape, .pillage, .extend, and .extinguish.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Some years ago here in Brazil the only ones that could register a domain name were companies (and they had to prove they were companies). Regular people also wanted to register domains, as Internet was gaining popularity and personal websites becoming common. So they started complaining, and the powers that be decided to create new Brazilian TLDs just for regular people.
They were so wise that they had a brilliant idea. To create various TLD's, each one for an occupation. So far so good. In a demonstration of their wisdom, they keenly chose 23 occupations as deserving a TLD. Some of them:
Obviously people just ignored these ridiculous TLDs and continued registering
Amazing, isn't it ?
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Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
Lots of 'mericans would say any partial nudity belongs n the .xxx domain; lots of people elsewhere in the world laugh at that. Lots of 'mericans would say violence *doesn't* belong in .xxx; lots of others would disagree. My brother-in-law will happily rent the goriest action videos for his kids, with profanity, gore, mayhem, etc, but it better not show much in the way of nudity.
It wouldn't work. It would just create more and more arguments.
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Well, we keep hearing the same refrain of "slow and controlled manner" that we have for the past decade. If this gets any more slow and controlled we could all be dead before the next TLD is born.
But seriously, why the emphasis on keeping domaind artificially scarce? The argument they keep discussing is one of needing to protect valuable marks, but that is only necessary when a limited number of domains are available. If you can register any 3-letter combination as a TLD (minus a few restricted ones?), you have just made it financally prohibitive for anyone with even a huge bankroll to do any domain squatting.
It is only by making domains scarce that they become individually valuable or threatening -- make them plentiful and it's up to the company to bring the value to the name (rather than vice-versa: the "roulette wheel" theory of domain registration - pick the right one and you're rich!)
At least they sort of tangentially talk about this when asking about differentiation. Why the hell should ICANN be concerned about differentiation? When companies are paying 50 grand to come up with names like Agilent and Agilant within 12 months of each other, why should ICANN be looking out for corporate identity differentiation? Bury us in 999 TLDs and maybe Agilent and Agilant can differentiate themselves with the extra three letters...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
http://slash.dot/.slash/
"aitch tee tee pee colon slash slash slash dot dot slash dot slash slash".
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I actually think the best suggestion for a new top level domain in the document is a TLD devoted to material of an 'adult' nature. Such a domain is one of the few I think would gain rapid support among it's target community. We all hope the Internet will remain relatively free of control, but the nay-sayers continue to point out that the net is full of pornography etc. A new TLD for new sites and hopefully a reasonable degree of migration of existing adult material will serve to provide a degree of separation. The average adult (male at least) probably knows where the local adult store is in town and can make the choice for themselves. With a designated TLD the same will hopefully become true of the internet, this I feel will weaken the argument of the censors without reducing freedom. And besides, if your that way inclined you'll know where all the good stuff is.
"Last night I loaded up one of those trashy .com sites. You know, just for the articles." *snicker*
"I think freedom of speech is fine, so long as my children don't get exposed to any of those .com sites."
Other useful ones might be .info (public information servers), .ent (entertainment, also easily corruptible), and .dotcom (cheesy internet scams)
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