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."

Comments

Who decides what belongs there?

[A nonymous Coward]

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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Mixed bag

[NMerriam]

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...

I find this amusing...

[seebs]

http://slash.dot/.slash/

"aitch tee tee pee colon slash slash slash dot dot slash dot slash slash".

.sex OR .xxx

[JamesSharman]

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.

Finally...

[ruin]

I think the most obvious and necessary new TLD is .xxx, for online vendors of pornography. It would be a distinction appreciated by both lovers and haters of porn. Is there any other subject matter for which such a strict distinction exists? Imagine...

"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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