Slashdot Mirror
ICANN Selects New Top Level Domains
Azog, joined by a bevy of like-mindeds, wrote with the news: "ICANN has selected several proposals for new TLDs for further negotiation. The selected entries, and their proposed TLDs, are:
JVTeam (.biz), Afilias (.info), Global Name Registry (.name), RegistryPro (.pro), MDMA (.museum), SITA (.aero), and NCBA (.coop)." Here is the
unanimously accepted resolution.
cyrdog points to Wired's coverage, and pavelivanov points to the story at CNET. And as several people have pointed out, .web is conspicously absent, even though it seems like a shoo-in. Someone, somewhere is going to get that one day ... Update: 11/17 09:48 PM by H :Check out SatireWire's coverage as well *grin*.
No it's not, asshole! IP addresses of hosts within a network change, a naming system needs to stand one layer higher to allow the owner of the network some flexibility. IP addresses have all sorts of problems for use as host names, multiple hosts per IP, multiple IPs per host and so on.
And also because when you just hear about a company 'Underplunder, Inc.' you don't have to suck out of your finger some name, but can just try underplunder.com and you might get your match...
Which is exactly why the current system is breaking down. What if there is another Underplunder Inc? The current system assumes that there is one such name per country plus a handful of "special" ones which get .net, .com or .org. This was fine when the net was small but is just useless under the assumption that everyone has, or can have, their own site. How many names for companies or people are there? There must be duplication in any letter-based system.
The assumption that people can't remember numbers is wrong (well, for most of us, anyway), as shown by telephone numbers, and numbers avoid almost all the problems with the current DNS.
Wake up: DNS is disintegrating as we speak and ICANN is not helping. What do you think is the solution?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Well, certainly ".kids" has some difficulties, but I don't see what's wrong with .adult or .xxx. I don't think they need to be enforced strictly (running all the pornographic .coms to .adult for example), but I do think there are porn merchants out there who would move to the new TLD. For one it gives people a better idea of the content of a site, for another, it can help parents keep their kids from looking at smut online (not that it'll stop them, but it would help).
That's the DUMBEST bunch of TLDs I've ever heard. Cripes, they had a chance to make some truly cool/interesting new domains that would make people actually want to get non-dot-com names, thereby helping those businesses as well as reducing load on the top level serers.
Instead, they cluttered the namespace with a bunch of lame crap. Who put them in charge, again?
I see a couple of useful TLDs that have been thrown out, however I haven't even seen a proposal put forward for .aol! I can't imagine a more useful TLD, it would make it so much easier to write all your filtering software. As soon as all usenet feeds and discussion groups, not to mention irc start dropping everything that comes from the .aol domain the average iq of the net would probably double overnight. Meanwhile everything inside .aol would have their own 'value added' services to keep them satified with 'the internet' still so everyone would be happy,\.
It would certainly be beneficial if they had created a .tm domain for trademarks. That would certainly clarify the way trademarks relate to web pages, and could provide a nice niche that prevented corporate trademark overprotection from spreading into comic and unrelated domain names.
ok, I don't like .coop at all. It took me quite a bit of thinking about it before I realized that it should be .co-op, a domain for cooperatives. .coop just seems like a TLD suited for chickens and I don't know too many chickens who use computers.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
(Note - only UK slashdotters will understand this. Aero is a popular UK chocolate bar).
You're correct, of course -- there are more record stores in Fargo than that. We also have a movie theatre that might show an NC-17 movie every now and again, too. But the situation is not as rosy as you paint. You really don't find NC-17 or unrated movies at Blockbuster or at the local theatre chain. You're really not going to find an uncut Eminem or Bloodhound gang album at Target or Wal-Mart.
.xxx sites, you haven't been paying attention. A lot of site we would never consider porn will be labled .xxx, and a lot of major carriers will block those sites. It will happen just like it happened with "voluntary" X and NC-17 ratings on movies, and with Tipper Gore's "voluntary" record labels. And people will be suprised.
People who reluctantly agree with "voluntary labeling" are often very, very suprised what type of crap actually ends up getting labled. They're also very suprised when that labled stuff really does become difficult to find. Everyone thinks "voluntary labeling won't be so bad. They'll only label the really nasty bad stuff. They won't go overboard and label anything remotely offensive." Then, they're suprised when a movies Crash or Eyes Wide Cut gets "bad" labels stuck on.
Then, they think "well, the label is there to warn parents. Major content distributors won't start indiscriminantly filtering out anything with a label. Thats not what the labels are for!" Then, they're suprised when providers like Blockbuster and WalMart and the major theatre chains put a block on anything with the label.
If you don't think the same thing would happen with
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
MDMA is Ecstacy!
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
These are in fact the WORST domain names that are so short-sighted, people are gonna start registerting troll names( compaq.contoura.aero - the only website named after a laptop!) for fun.
.aero, wont most .aero sites be named after big airline companies? They might as well just stick to .com or that even more redundant .biz. I doubt many ultralight aviation enthusiasts are gonna use it.
.org be better than .museum? I mean, I don't see museums being more businessy, but more so educational and preservers of history.
.pro? I'll register sex.pro or counterstrike.pro, and i've just anonuced my superiority to the web! Really, we don't need a class-system for domain names on the web. If so, at least have .novice for people who want to register low-self-esteemed websites.
I mean, with
.coop? WTF? I'm thinking grocery stores, or better yet c.everett.coop - shit, I better buy that one before Mr. Surgeon General gets it!
Wouldnt
.pro. Uh, pro what? Can I just declare myself a
.name? Uh. tha'ts like having 1-800-PHONE-NUMBER.
any ideas why the world's morality filter delimmas weren't solved with a simple suffix? it would have been so easy.
---
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
Is it just me or does this seem like a weak start for new TLDs? My guess is that these new TLDs will become the ghetto of domain names. Real businesses will have .com domains, and wannabes will have .biz. But new TLDs are always good, because they remove an artificial scarcity that damages small websites.
uhhhhhmmmmm kind o' metal ain't it, boy?
I tend to disagree with you there. The primary function of DNS was to create a way to make it easier for humans to work with the growing number of hosts on the Internet. TCP/IP addresses were to hard to remember, so a number of systems evolved - two big ones were NIS and DNS.
That being said, what do you think would happen if you asked someone what dot-com stands for? How about dot-int? Or dot-org? You and I know, but non-technical folk? Most probably don't have a clue what they mean. I'm sure all here would agree with me on that. Maybe a UUNET type naming scheming isn't exactly the answer either, but something easier can be done - base it on simpler TLD names.
If I were a consumer and wanted to find a web site on Ford cars for example, what would I rather type that would make more sense to me? Probably
ford.cars
not
www.ford.com
Doing this rules out any other Ford company confusion because we know that we are looking for the ford company that makes cars. It also takes the hostname (typically www) out of the picture so that the user has less to type.
Is this something that can already be accomplished in DNS (ford.cars). Yes, if they added the dot-cars TLD (for example). Why not dot-travel? Or dot-family? Or dot-adult? These make sense and it would be easier for the consumer.
From experience, I can say that it is definitely possible, and would definitely be wanted by consumers.
Furthermore, we can't just dump DNS because of the two single most important uses of the Internet Email and Web addresses. We've gotten everyone used to DNS, we must figure out a way to change it into something else. I think that by opening TLDs (as opposed to limiting them), is the beginning of the reform.
Chris
-= www.opendnstech.com =-
Actually, this never happens in the UK. I don't know why it never caught on but there it is.
And so we rather than try to resolve the dispute, we decide they're not to be trusted with it, and lose all this?
It's not a matter of trust. You assume that disputes can be resolved. I say they can't. If there are two companies called "Toni's Pizzas" then one of them must backdown. Plus the reality is that lawyers have a vested interest in making suits on domain names and it is wishful thinking to say that this will ever stop or ever be fair. The richest litigant will always have too much power no matter what the rights and wrongs of the case.
In a world with 6 Billion people using the net, names simply don't and can't work. The fact that ICANN is trying crap solutions does not mean that a good solution exists.
They wouldn't be that random, if major companies and ISP's make up the first layer of the hierarchy then many numbers will start off the same, much as many phone number prefixes come up over and over again, which makes them into "memory blobs" which are easier to remember.
I am worried that the baby is in the process of drowning.
Such a move would be restricting easy access to the net to those of us who are trained
Does having to use a phone book restrict access to the telephone? Web search engines could be complemented by an online phone directory-type system.
How important is the naming system in finding sites at the moment? What percentage of sites are found through their content (ie using search engines) rather than typing in the url? I don't know but the information would be useful for this argument.
IME many (not most) people find sites by typing the name of the site into a search engine (e.g. the type "www.fish4homes.com" into altavista). Sad, but true.
Another solution would be to close down the TLDs (.com, .org etc) and enforce a multi-layered geographical system right down to town level (www.smithsbooks.bangor.ni.uk or www.smithsbooks.islington.london.uk) but: a) no one will run such a system as the amount of checking to enforce it is too much when net useage is growing as it is now, b) it actually leads to names which are probably harder than numbers to remember, and c) still leaves the question of individuals' sites in the same town open to question.
When you think about this, ask yourself "how is the current system going to work when everyone in the 1st world has their own individual webpage which is permanently connected to the net?". This day will come, web connections will come with your 'phone one day and each connection will need a name in the DNS.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
weave.nom maybe, weave.name -- never....
(1) Strict rules about who can register a domain-name in a particular TLD space (e.g., a .com _must_ be a _legitimate_ registered business, an .edu _must_ be an established and _accredited_ educational institution
.edu would be better as .edu.us/.ac.us/etc.
But at the same time only if there is a good reason for not having an apropriate geographic domain name. e.g. most of
(2) each domain must be the _only_ domain owned by a specific business or other entity (no fair buying up everything that's similar, no registering multiple identities)
There is a fine line between a company being "domain grabbing" and one which simply wishes to use it's normal trading identities. The line is especially blurred with a startup "e-business".
This proof of concept seems designed to prove that it is a pretty lame concept... These particular TLDs are quite lame. Of course, that probably won't stop people from buying them, for no good reason.
/. fashion. THESE TLDs would prove the concept AND maintain the spirit of the Internet:
.cums" and people would merely think they have a funny accent...
Now, as for the TLDs *I* think should be registered, in true "I know more than they do"
.cum - Then people who work at sex sites could casually mention that they work at "one of those
.borg - For anyone who has been assimilated... you know, Microsoft ISVs, OEMs, developers, etc...
.nut - For sites featuring rants, conspiracy theories, pictures of people's pets with captions drawn in using Microsoft Paint, etc.
.kil - For Quake servers and towns named after Dutch rivers...
.guv - For people who want to run their own countries but can't find one that will let them...
also can be used by stereotyped British butlers...
Also, since we know Aliens are among us, shouldn't we have planetary/stellar codes in addition to country codes?
For more info go to: www.wecomeinpeace.mars
o/~ we are pissed, we are pissed, we have to resist... o/~ - ec8or
Oldest? Of course not. The solution to who gets the domain will be the fairest, most equitable, most reasonable, and most common solution know to man.
The person who can afford to hire the best lawyers.
Because in places like Canada, in order to get a .ca domain, you have to be nationally registered, which means you have a business office in
more than one province or pay $200 to be nationally registered. Otherwise you get stuck with a lame .bc.ca or .ca
.de domain names were at one time understood by the (West) German post office. Thus if you put someone's email address on "snail mail" it would get to them.
An entirely sensible policy. Have the domain name give some clue as to where the company is and where it is likely to do business. Indeed there is a story that
--
$you = new YOU;
$you = new YOU;
honk() if $you->love(perl)
I mean really, come on! Give me some .ass!!!
.museum, .coop, and .aero
.ass es
I can see it now...
cocacolacaneatmy.ass
ronaldmcdonaldtakesitinthe.ass
billclintondoesnthavetopayforsome.ass
icannneedstoremoveitsehadfromits.ass
isuck.ass
microsoft.ass
Surely no one could be as asinine as to create TLDs like
These people need to walk out of their offices and talk to real human beings (not lifeless bloodsucking marketing agents) and maybe, just maybe they'll ge their heads out of their
Use bookmarks (or your Palm pilot!); I don't remember any more URLs than I do phone numbers.
result in numerous "real names" like services - proprietary name-to-number mapping sites that would be much worse than the current DNS system, which at least is global.
Why worse? The underlying number system would still be global. I have three telephone directories here, one county, one local business and one local general. It works fine and I don't have to use it if I don't want to. If I need non-local numbers I can get them from BT. On the web search engines can provide these services. What's the big deal? The fact that DNS is is global is it's biggest problem. The entire world's namespace needs more than one or two layers of hierarchy and the current DNS isn't giving it that, and never will. Global and useless DNS is still useless.
I'm not saying this is because it was badly designed but it has been badly administered and is beyond repair. It could have worked, it should have worked, but assholes have been in control and fucked it up. Commercial interests will always do this to a system where the URLs are recognisable names (ie trademarks) and where the assignment of the names is not based on geography (whatever happened to .us?). Closing down the TLDs and leaving only the ccTLDs would help a lot, but it's never going to happen, certainly while people like ICANN are in charge.
If you think text names for hosts is a system which will work fine for the next ten years then you're mad. It can't and won't; the trouble that we're having now with the namespace is just going to get worse.
Looking further ahead, imagine a world with 3 billion sites, what are you going to do to DNS to make it work?
Make a counter suggestion, or do you really think that the current system is fine?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
.aero - Why does the aerospace industry need their own TLD? What are they doing online (besides operating their own TLD registry) that merits a TLD more than, say, the banking industry?
It looks as though ICANN's criteria as "Are we happy with the proposer operating as a TLD registry" rather than "Is their proposal sensible".
ICANN's new TLD choices are more lame than I'd expected. I figured on some heavy-hitting TLDs like .WEB and .NOM or even .TEL. Instead ICANN chose what amounts to token TLDs...because for all intensive purposes the new TLDs will have limited appeal and usefulness...for example:
.COM and in the eye of some people .biz has negative connotations and will instill images of con artists and second rate businesses in their minds; many people will feel that real business uses .COM
.NOM would have been a much better choice...why did ICANN pick .name over .nom??
.museum - why so many limited use TLDs...doesn't make sense to me.
.name in the sense that .pro is also aimed towards individuals - many people who register their name in .name will also do so in .pro.
.COM's dominance is not threatened in any way from these new TLDs...in fact the contrary will be true....COM will be more valuable and sought than ever before. Thanks again ICANN for keeping .COM #1!!
museum: How many people will actually use that TLD?
Heck, many people can't even spell museum!
biz: redundant to
.info: Actually not a bad TLD...but certainly not a top TLD choice in my view since its appeal will be limited.
.name: Terrible!!
.aero: About as limited as
.pro: Seems redundant to
.coop: The most ridiculous TLD of the bunch...some ICANN folks flew the coop when they chose to approve this one...coop is a totally useless TLD.
Bottom line is that
Bin is not hard coded for the ICANN roots and it is easy to change (very easy) but the difficulty is Windows. Any new DNS system has to face the fact that >80% of computers come with Windows and that the vast bulk of net users today are using Windows.
How many Windows setups have any reference to the root servers. This is one of the things which MS has liked to pass off onto proper systems.
To make trademarks lawful requires: .REG
.food
.us
1. TM identifier - example
2. Classification identifier - example
3. Country identifier - example
So dominos pizzas in USA would be domino.food.us.reg
In the case of a federal nation, such as the US you might need a sub national classification. Thus you'd have something like "domino.food.ny.us.reg"
It is hard to think of a bunch of web-companies with better business plans than the porn sites; the more popular ones also have the best technical skills and admin systems on the web; they have to to cope with the traffic. So: why no .xxx?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Like I said before in the last ICANN article, why don't you go to ICANN's site and read why the .kids and .xxx applications were rejected.
.kids and .xxx. They said they had reservations about the ability of the particular companies to implement and manage them _successfully_, both in regards to technical work and content management.
They (*gasp*) actually do have reasons. And remember, this isn't a contest - "What would be the coolest new tld". There are proposals from individual companies to be based on their merits.
ICANN did not say they disagree with the idea behind
But please, don't take my word for it, get it from the source...
...as of November 1, 2000, the laws regarding .ca domain registrations have been changed: it's as open as .com now. .ca registrars. And hurry! :)
Check Tucows.ca for a list of valid
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
From the article:
.xxx or .sex they dont have any appeal to major industry - just evil pornography peddlers - g-darn sinners all.
New domains approved by the board are subject to approval by the Department of Commerce
Nice to see the 'net has become an arm of the American Corporatist army - what the hell does the Commerce industry have to do with it? Maybe thats why you wont see
There apparently was/is a "rouge" DNS server handling the .web TLD, though not everyone elses DNS servers point to it. Some do, apparently, thus creating the "unofficial" status.
Apparently, it's not just a matter of their saying "gee, a .foo would be cool," but it's a matter of giving the new .foo over to the person/organization who submitted the proposal.
They dropped .xxx and .kids because the applicants weren't competent to run a registry service.
So, it didn't come down to logical divisions, but to registrars. Just like .mil is managed by one organization (DoD), so would .xxx or .kids.
Personally, I am glad ".kids" didn't make it. It's an idiomatic word. (Is it related to that infamous .cx image?). I also prefer the three-letter ones, just in consistency.
I also didn't like the .web thing. Isn't the www. convention enough? Or would Foobar Inc., need to move their web presence to some new toplevel domain?
[
hmm.. I wouldn't exactly put museums as educational. there are museums of the weidest things, and although I would probably learn something from going to say the dinky toy museum or the piggybank museum, I would hardly call it educational.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I can remember my phone number, even though it is 11 digits long with the UK area code, and my computer can remember numbers much longer than that. This is a hint to the solution. Give hosts numbers rather than names. IP addresses, of course, don't work as they change, so a central register of numbers needs to be set up, which in itself is an issue as power corrupts (see ICANN).
I'm thinking of a system where there is a string of digits separated by dots (eg 1.3412.1823), where the initial number would indicate a continent, then the following groups of numbers would be networks of machines, until the final number (1823 in this example) would be a specific machine in the second last network (3412 in the example).
The original authority would be allowed to assign network numbers in the individual continents for a fairly large one-off lifetime fee. The owners of a network number would then be free to assign numbers within their own space at whatever fee they like, but with the provision that the right to sell subnet numbers gets transferred to anyone they assign a number to. So the owner of 1.3412.1823 could assign 1.3412.1823.1 , .2, .3 etc to whoever they liked. Such reselling would be required to be on the same on-off lifetime fee basis (although the fee might be different) as the top level authority.
This way the number resolution can still work in much the same way as name resolution does now, with zones of authority and the work of resolving a number to an IP address is shared out as it is now.
With the top level fee being large, the next level would mostly be ISP's who make money back by selling on at a lower fee per number.
The separation between IPs and host "names" is maintained and ALL the crap about who owns trademarks and shit is lost. Think about it: all the disputes are gone, especially if network owners are required to assign in sequential order.
A distributed system for the very top level would be nice to prevent abuse of power, but perhaps the organisation set up to run it could be held in some sort of trust rather than being a private company. IANAL.
I personally think that something needs to be done or there's only about 5 years life left in the web before the whole thing is bogged down in disputes and namespace is saturated.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
So how often will (or can) ICANN meet and add new TLD's?
Once a week? Once a year? Never again?
Other people have already asked, but I'm also curious, is there a technical reason to limit TLD's or is it just plain' ol' politics?
Noticably lacking are any TLD's reserved for criticism of large trademark holders -- i.e. the .sucks proposal that would have allowed legitimate criticism sites to avoid specious trademark infringement lawsuits (remember Verizonreallysucks.com?)
At least it has dawned upon the sage minds of ICANN that 3-4 TLD's constitutes an artificial scarcity. Perhaps today's decision opens the door for future domains that represent broader constituencies.
Sincerely,
Vergil
Insects and Grafitti Photos
If .xxx existed several currently profitable filtering software companies - who I'm sure contribute to ICANN in any way possible - would lose a lot of money.
Can we say Collusion
Ad in classifieds: Pandora's Box (no box) $5
It gets worse. I got some NSI spam within the past week or so offering a discount to people who register the corresponding .net and .org to go along with their .com.
I was actually looking forward to the new domains. I thought they would create some good ones that might be worth using. I find these new ones to be most illogical, however. Except for .biz and .pro, they are all over three letters! Judging from how unsuccessful .us has been due to its long extensions (see nic.us to see how long they are; domainname.city.state.us), you would think that they'd learn. What about .web? And how about .porn or .xxx, which would finally make it easy to create filters that didn't have large rates of misblocking pages while not blocking all pages that they are supposed to (see peacefire.org)? I could have done a better job than them and I'm just a teenager.
.com, .net, and .org. There is no way that creating extensions that only apply to a small percentage of people will work. We need to get rid of this appointed web authority.
The whole point of this was to get rid of the congestion that has overtaken
"I have not failed. I've simply found 10,000 ways that won't work." --Thomas Edison
People will continue to register each site under every TLD they can get their hands on. Government will continue to award sites based on trademark. Same old mess, some new scrambling for all the "sure-fire winner" names among the brokers.
What I want to know is, why bother with TLDs at all? Why not just arbitrary strings, with spaces and punctuation?
--------
Created in the mid-1990s, indeed. Try a little fact-checking next time. (I personally remember using sites such as "ftp.sun.com" and "uunet.uu.net" in 1987.)
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
TLDs like:
.perv - Most of the net falls under this one...
.orgy - For those special clustering solutions
.dot - For those who still have ham radio licences.
.dash - For the rest of the Morse Code freaks
.netnazi - For all those people who want to act like the French government.
.post - So I can get "first.post".
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
I agree with ketilf. They're going to get huge amounts of flak whatever they do, and they're much better off starting with lame names that nobody cares about too much so they can fight their fights on those. They only get one chance to introduce .inc, .mp3, and .xxx, and they need a couple of practice rounds first.
.biz, since various Alternate Root groups have been using that for a while.
The main controversial one is
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
According to the AP story, .web was not accepted because of "concerns that it has already been unofficially registered."
ehhhh?
__
>"You're not an Internet provider? Sorry, you can't have .net.
That damned 'making a profit' thing getting in the way of logic and ideals, again.
Seriously, what real business incentive would NSI have for enforcing TLD guidelines?
>Instead, we get crap like "Register your domain in ALL these different TLD's so nobody can steal it!"
Wow, they really messed up, huh? Instead of having the overhead of reviewing and rejecting applicants that don't qualify for a particular TLD, they simply get 3x the revenue from many customers.
Seriously (again), I agree from a logical POV that we'd be better off (the users of the internet, that is) had NSI been required to strictly enforce the distinctions between com, org and net - but it's unrealistic to criticize them for having not done so seeing as how their reason for existance is to make a profit (maximize revenue, control costs, generate a return for investors, etc).
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
My monkey-brain powered arm could have picked better TLDs!
-gerbik
I agree. For instance, how many websites .aero are there going to be, even if it includes the aerospace and the commercial airlines? Is it really worth the effort of porting existing apps to recognize domains like this.
.coop and .pro? .web at least make a lot of sense as, in my opinion .health or .sex or .xxx, even .kids
And what's up with
It also would be interesting for non-admins like me to know what would it take to have an unlimited gTLDs. I'm surprised the registrars didn't came up with that idea as there would be a whole lot of money involved in selling any kind of domain name, people would go nuts buying all sorts of combinations. Not that that would be a good thing but it would surely be interesting to watch.
"All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams". Elias Canetti
Because in places like Canada, in order to get a .ca domain, you have to be nationally registered, which means you have a business office in more than one province or pay $200 to be nationally registered. Otherwise you get stuck with a lame .bc.ca or .ca
some karma... and kinda lukewarm about it.
I just hope I can be the first person to try to get the chicken.coop domain name. WOOHOO!
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
If the introduction of new TLDs works this time, maybe your favourite TLD will be introduced next time, and maybe from then on, TLDs will be introduced more often.
Also, someone asked why there has to be limits on TLDs, and not an infinite number. This is because you have to have the root-servers on the internet where a name lookup can start if you are looking up a name, and the way DNS works is to cache lookups around the net, since it is hierarchical, thus alleviating the root-servers' workload. The stability of the root-servers are actually essential to the stability of the internet as it is used today.
Of course, there is the little matter of how nice guys that don't copyright names could have trouble with infringement...
Let me moderate them one by one:
.biz
Score 1, Redundant
A dot-com wannabe? What does this entail, other than having the people that already own dot-com trying to sue for the dot-biz? .info
Score -1, Redundant
Hmm, i wonder what this one if for? Any use i can think of for this one can be better served by info.domain.something... .name
Score -1, Silly
This is probably the worse option for "personal" domains i can think of. Let alone sorting problems with two people having the same name (who gets the domain? the oldest?), i don't really think this is going to be very popular. I wouldn't want one, would you? IMHO they should have gone for .home, .ind (for individual, or independent, or whatever you want it to mean) or something of the kind. .pro
Score 4, Interesting
This looks like it can actually be used to some effect. Of course, if it's targeted at professionals of some sort, i wonder if it is going to achieve its objectives. I see a lot of www.windows.pro domains popping up for magazines, companies, and so on. But that's probably what they want anyway, to sell domain names, right? Being useful to people is for sissies... .museum
Score -1, Troll
dot-what? Is anyone here in their right minds? How many of those are there going to be? 100? 200? 5000? What's next? dot-church? Too limited, too long, too hard to remember if there are only going to be a few of them. .aero
Score -1, Redundant
Too limited. Too self-serving. Too redundant. Except if it's meant as a domain for airheads... .coop
Score 2, Interesting
This one could be interesting, but isn't this covered by .com or .org already? It could prove limited in usage.
In general, the new domains are either redundant or too limited in usage. The criteria for appraisal of the proposals were not, in my oppinion, in the best interest of the Internet Community. ICANN could have started off a whole lot better.I always knew I was going to miss Jon Postel, i just didn't know I was going to miss him this much.
free the mallocs!
- .kids [and]
.tel ... seemed too ambiguous.
Yeah, what's to stop me from putting up a website with the URL:http://sex.with.kids
http://promise.not.to.tel
Nothing can stop me. I'm evil.
If you read the application, the second level will be
So it is really more like a Usenet-style name system. Ex: ford.auto.pro, citibank.fin.pro, northwest.aero.pro, etc.
ICANN seems to be drifting, rudderless (from so many conflicting agendas, i.e., corporate arm-twisting, academic waffling, etc.) into the rocks on a lee shore. This ain't no way to run a world, folks. They need to either find some principles, and the backbone to make them stick, or... admit failure (declare victory?) and get out of the business.
.com _must_ be a _legitimate_ registered business, an .edu _must_ be an established and _accredited_ educational institution, etc.); (2) each domain must be the _only_ domain owned by a specific business or other entity (no fair buying up everything that's similar, no registering multiple identities); (3) speculative domain-registration should be outlawed (establish a business legally, _then_ register the domain-name); (4) establish rules (with teeth!) to suppress trademark, brand-name, and typo-squatting abuses.
What's needed? Well, a few things - or so, at least, it seems to me: (1) Strict rules about who can register a domain-name in a particular TLD space (e.g., a
If ICANN doesn't get its act together in these areas, moves towards national legislation and interminable negotiations about international agreements (worse messes) will be inevitable. ICANN needs to be drafting proposed legislation in all venues, worldwide, to define the Internet naming conventions, procedures, rules, and remedies.
And, they failed to create a new adult oriented TLD (which would be ENORMOUSLY useful to both the porn mongers and the concerned parents of the world).
Hmmm, let me see how hard this is:
Any of these is better than most of the crap coughed up by ICANN.
ICANN is an excellent example of what happens when you combine huge committees, lawyers, big business, and good ol' fashioned bureaucracy into one big lovable ball of everything that tries to kill off inventiveness, efficiency, common sense, personal independance, and the human spirit.
Nothing has been solved, pretty much. Name crowding will still happen. Hopefully the 5 new board members, NOW that they have power, might push for a faster review of newer TLDs before the next scheduled time. We'll still have squatters and RDNH occuring as there's nothing desirable in these.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
It seems to me like they are overspecifying the use of some domains and underspecifying the use of others. .kids is a broad domain that allows many uses, but has a contraint on it. .biz doesn't. .biz will become a cleaner .com, but so what? All it would do is prevent trademark disputes. Secondly, what will happen to sites like buy.com? If they have a trademark on buy.com, then I can register buy.biz no problem, and that will be very confusing. On the other hand, they can't have a trademark on buy, so we end up with confusion. We will get an exact copy of .com, except without personal websites. But what's to say I'm not a buisness? I've done website design for people.
The only ones I can see working are .coop and .museum. All the rest are very shortsighted and simply not thought-out. Woe for the smart and useful domains like .kids.