Will New TLDs' Restrictions Negate Their Aims?

Kyle writes: "According to this story on Wired, most of the new TLDs selected by ICANN will be restricted. For example, .biz will sport a $2000 price tag with an annual $150 fee, and will be limited to verifiable, legitimate businesses with specific commercial intent. The .pro TLD will be used exclusively by certified "professionals," including doctors, lawyers, etc. If the point is to introduce competition for .com, ICANN might have missed the target. Might this exclusivity limit the popularity of new domains? If almost no one is allowed to use them, the general consumer will likely be unaware that they exist, and continue in their .com'ocentric mindset." Problem is, who says what's bona fide? Would officious rules like this allow eccentric, personal Web-museums (like the online LED Museum) into.museum?

Comments

Check out the TLDs in the ORSC root system

[DNS Root]

Go here to set up your DNS:
http://www.open-rsc.org/
http://www.youcann.org/

Examples of the "other" domains:
http://www.commandments.god/
http://www.405.mov/
http://www.bbc.news/
http://www.cnn.news/

Good idea, wrong gTLDs

[Tor]

It is a Good Idea(tm) to let only legitimate businesses willing to pay $2000 for one or two domain names, and not squatters collecting hundreds of these, register domain names under ".biz". In fact, it will most certainly unclutter the namespace sufficiently that the $1,000,000 price tags that some companies are now paying said squatters are a thing of the past.

But ".biz" is an incredibly stupid TLD. Imagine "sun.biz", "cisco.biz", etc. If anyting, it will only attract spammers, like flies. I.e. "direct marketing" organizations, and their ilk.

As a side note, the problem with inability to deal with squatting of ".com" (.net, .org) addresses has to do with several registrars handling these. Competition for domain name registration is Good, but no single TLD should be in the hands of more than one registrar. Why? Because they will compete for customers by lowering their prices - if one entity managed it they could actually increase the prices for registration based on the current shortage.

• Specific criterias for each TLD is Good. ".org" should be reserved for certified non-profit organizations (not per a specific government's tax rules, but per the registrar's rules). ".net" should be reserved for network service providers. ".pro" for professionals. A valid trademark for ".com". ".nothing" for domain name squatters.
• Price competition within a single TLD is Bad. Squatters can buy hundreds of domain names easily, then resell them at astronomical prices. They would not buy hundreds of $2000 names, but a legitimate business would.
• Stupid TLDs are bad. The price tag of $50000 for a TLD application filtered out common sense, and left only money left to speak. Bad idea.

-tor

Re:Please... there are rules on the Internet?

[Wakko Warner]

please.

tell me visions.edu is a 4-year college.

then tell me what courses I can enroll in at root.edu.

Imaginal.edu looks a little suspicious too.

insurancefactory.edu? A college that does nothing but sell insurance?

people have mentioned california.edu before; it's just a portal site for every california college, but it isn't a school itself.

schools.edu is registered too.

discountproductmall.edu used to be.

clue.edu doesn't give out degrees either.

and that's just 23% of the .EDU root zone file. Do you need more examples?

- A.P.

--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.

Am I the only one here....

[scotpurl]

...who thinks that the latest ICANN decisions seemed designed to milk money out of those who can most afford to pay? Businesses, doctors, lawyers, hospitals....

THERE IS ANOTHER, OLDER, CHEAPER .BIZ

[rs79]

.BIZ was first deployed by Karl Denninger around 5 years ago. I think he charged $25 or something. Karl subsequently sold MCS.NET and these days Leah Gallegos runs .BIZ. I think she charges about $6 with the idea that that's wholesale and anybody can be a "registrar" for somebody else or just grab domains for themselves. The URL is HTTP://WWW.BIZTLD.NET .

The .BIZ TLD resolves in many of the popular alternative root clusters: ORSC, TINC, PacROOT

Being outside the ICANN/US Government system means it's not subject to dangerous foolishness like the horribly flawed UDRP and silly-assed "sunrise" provision.

Only reason Trademarks work

[Project_2501]

is because they are protected by the government. If trademarks were not protected by the law, each company could take on a variety of names instead of just one. Yes this may cause confusion at first becuase scumbag spammer types would use names that have nothing to do with the trademark but at the same time we would be making people more aware of the fact that this kind of thing may happen, and we could start an internet based blacklisting of individuals who are squatting or using names that are clearly meant to deceive the people.

Basically what I am saying is that we the people should be our own regulators. We don't need the government reulating what is legit or not, we the people are smart enough to do this thing on our own. Free intellectual property. Let the people decide what is a legitimate source of binary data over what is not. We are not kids anymore dammit, the government should give us this right. To not give us this right is an offense to our intelligence not to mention to the progress of the democratic world.

-= Griffis =-

Oh god, can the screw it up MORE?

[bluephone]

I had hope when ICANN was founded. When I saw that there was a FEE just to PROPOSE new TLDs, I was shocked, but thought, "Well, they have to get funding somewhere, I suppose." Then I learned that whoever recommended the accepted new TLDs got a lock (like NSI had up to a year ago) on the TLD, I was angered. Where went the idea of opening up the net? Then I learned they shot down two of what I felt to be the most important TLDs; .kids and .sex or .xxx. There could have been a lot of good done with .kids, and .sex or .xxx would have helped separate the .coms from the .cums out there. Now this. This is insane. Since I'm a professional, not a corporate entity on my own, I should be able to register a .pro for myself if I WANT to, I shouldn't have to pass some moron's arbitrary judgement.

It's official, ICANN is useless.They're just as useless as they were before they made any decisions.