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Will .coop Be Regulated Better Than .com Et Al?
zoomba writes: "An article from the New York Times [free reg required] today sheds a little bit of light on what is being done to regulate these new domains recently approved by ICANN. According to the article, the .coop domain is now under the charge of National Cooperative Business Association. Hey, could this mean that sites with the .coop domain will actually BE Cooperative Businesses? A fresh change from organizations registering under .com, or companies under .net." (The "partners" link appears not to work; does it for anyone else?)
Slashdot had it's .org before Rob sold out :)
Please please please mod me up! I'm serious! Pathetic, but serious!
right on.. I hate those .somecountry domain names. like in Iceland where I live we have .is. I mean get those damn physical boundaries away from the web were they don't apply..
Thanks!
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for my.chicken.coop!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
It would really be pretty easy. They own slashdot.org and slashdot.com . Right now, the latter redirects to the former. It should be the other way around.
Care about freedom?
I'd rather be lucky than good.
I think we need a .doop TLD for Futurama fans
Or:
Dear registrant,
We have determined that your web site, CopterParts.aero, is being used to sell fan belts that can be used not just in helicopters but also in land vehicles. Your domain is hereby terminated.
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Why not just put www.nytimes.com into your hosts file with an ip of 208.48.26.223 (the ip for channel.nytimes.com). That way all links would take you there even when the article doesn't link there directly. Of course it won't work very well with a proxy but I digress.
Get rid of TLDs, or at the very least make them optional. They don't do anything, and there will never be a transnational process capable of taking into account the needs/desires/wants of every conceivable cultural, business and technological entity "fairly" -- there will always be some Slashdotters submitting stories about how the goons in charge of .whatever are being less than judicial in regulating it.
So let's end the insanity and start letting people register domains without TLDs. Most businesses buy their way into this situation (whois slashdot.org and slashdot.com for example), and without regulation bordering on the religious there's no way new TLDs won't end up in the same situation.
I don't think he really said that.
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Bob Fucking Costas. Does anyone else hate that motherfucker?
I'm wondering why the Open Root Server Confederation isn't running a ICANN to OSRC maping service. It'd seem like it'd make it a lot easier to get people to start using your registry.
It'd be much nicer to say "Oh well tell anyone using ICANN's ROOT servers to use pacific.ocean.alt-root.com instead." rather than "Well only 0.5% of the people on the net will be able to see your pacific.ocean domain."
So here's my idea, go register alt-root.com or some other easy to remember name. Setup up a DNS server with an SOA entry for each TLD the OSRC recognizes that maps to it's root. Then sit back and let the karma roll in.
* Disclaimer, it seems like this would be a relativly simple thing to do but since I'm no BIND hacker I could be wrong.
We just found that out - I did not know when I posted. And furthermore, just because I have something worthwhile to post, that makes me a karma whore? What a joke.
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
what about a few years from now, when there are permanent internet servers in earth orbit (on the ISS?). will they go under .gov, or will there be an .eo (for earth orbit) "ccTLD", since it meets the requirements....or maybe the rarely-used .int?
what about (further into the future now) systems running on the lunar surface? mars even, with that nasty 15 min lag time....
just a thought
bah, decentralization isn't inherently any more insecure than ICANN running the root servers. if the the roots served .tld roots instead of domain roots, it would be exactly the same as it is now.
i guess that's not really decentralized DNS, as much as decentralized TLDs. shrug. in any case, the technology is exactly the same.
Leading the partnership for a Slashdot-Free Slashdot, Son of Dog
The problem with the partners link is that it has http://www.partners.nytimes.com/..., when it should be just http://partners.nytimes.com/...~
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pilchie
I own a website that is myname.com and another one that is mynickname.com And neither of them is a business webpage. If you are going to try and hold websites to their extensions then you need to start re-evalutating every new old page, and I wont be happy about trying to move over to a .org domain. AND you have to start evaluating every new website that comes up.
I think it is simply too hard to enforce, we need somthing else, along the lines of internet2 that could be business only or education only etc. Either that or a heck of a lot more work should be put into correctly organizing the web. That sounds funny doesn't it "organizing the web".
Mueseums and co-ops don't fit well into one of the other TLDs. A co-op may be considered a buisness but it is also an orginization. A museum may be dedicated to its educational mission but it isn't a school and does not fit into the .edu mode too well, it may be a for-profit business or it may be a non-profit orginization.
.kids and .xxx. Like it or not, these sites do fit neatly into existing TLDs.
.kids and .xxx because it would have made it far easier to identify the contents of the site for the typical user that way and that is in my opinion the most important thing that a TLD should do!
I think what ICANN was trying to address more than anything was the square pegs going into round holes. When you look at it like that, I think that they have made some headway. Not as much as anyone would have liked.
When you look at it like that, it also explains why they rejected TLDs like
I'm not saying that I think this is what should have been done, I would have liked to see
I think that for some ambitious people, there is an opportunity here that is just waiting to be addressed. I'd call it the Digital Dewey Decimal System or DDDS. Design it to work in concert with search engines and indexers, AI would devine a DDDS numeric code for each page and then determine its position in the series of related pages and perhaps ascertain the value of its content. Researchers looking for detailed information could then search by the DDDS number allowing for very specific narrow searches.
but channel works just great :)
/. poster who posted this first..but it was buried beneath some other posts. Wanted to make sure everyone go this.
Props to the
At the bottom is a little blurb on what a cooperative is. Hope it helps!
f ormationIndex.cfm
http://www.landolakesinc.com/OurCompany/CompanyIn
Please please please mod me up! I'm serious! Pathetic, but serious!
(end comment) */ }
(end comment) */ }
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slashdot200/slashdot200 works.
T .html
Or just use this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/27/technology/27NE
Please please please mod me up! I'm serious! Pathetic, but serious!
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I agree strongly.
.XXX for anyone who wanted to start a porn site, we would help new companies get their names out and merge many of the adult .com sites to a new system."
.XXX and fee at least partially safe."
Not only that, but there is the tendency for all good-faith laws to end up being used for evil purposes.
One could say, "Listen, if we make a
"Not only that, but as parents, those of us who didn't want our children to view pornography could just block
So being the good utilitarian world that we are, we make this law in order to maximize the social good. Some number of years pass and the World TLD Commission is soon made up of members strongly reflecting the rich, old, white men that we should now know from history always end up in power.
Or mayber it won't end up that way. But one thing is for sure, every single one of the members on that Commission will have some status, most likely have worked in the past with some major corporation, and they now have the power of government.
So Joe Smith does his documentary in Africa, puts up a site to promote the airing on Discovery and the head of the TLD Commission has stock in the Nature channel. Boy its going to take a heavy conscience to keep him from popping that documentary full of Africans in the nude to an XXX.
flamebait? ya know, that guy that everyone from /. wanted so badly to get elected to ICANN ran on exactly the same platform as my post.
what does that tell ya?
Leading the partnership for a Slashdot-Free Slashdot, Son of Dog
whatchu.info and nonnayer.biz
The reason I've seen that makes sense to me, posted on Slashdot under another thread, is that this first addition to the TLDs is sort of a "proof of concept" of the process for adding new TLDs. That's why it's limited, and that's why they are being so very careful about who is allowed to administrate the new domains. If it works this time around, they will expand the system.
linux.coop, that will be funny.
The willingness of humanity to follow without question is the fall of them.
Domain Name: MICROSOFT.ORG
Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
Gudmundson, Carolyn (CG6635) carolyng@MICROSOFT.COM
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond , WA 98052
+1 (425) 882-8080 (FAX) +1 (425) 936-7329
if you must be a retard, please do it in private. anyone can own any tld. do you really think that everything under
and, as i'm sure rob has said many times, they bought the
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remove the www!
Just as anyone can now register a .org domain, even companies that are for profit in some ways (slashdot.. banner ads?), and companies owned by profit organizations (andover). Anyone can register a .org domain. Unless the .coop domain is regulated like the .edu domains are, they will probably fall into the hands of anyone and everyone.
I'm unclear on this. Aren't most businesses a bunch of people cooperating to make money?
Nope. Partners link doesn't work for me either... Chop off the "partners" part and it's fine.T .html
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/27/technology/27NE
I'm sorry, but I completely disagree. If I want to go shopping for a new toy, I want to deal with a UK company, and see prices in UK pounds. And I don't want to have to use the transatlantic pipes to do so. A .uk site will always get chosen by me before a .com. A study here in the UK has shown that UK companies using .com domains are actually losing business, because people think they are US based. Physical boundaries do apply, when it matters.
What about commercial, publicly-traded news/discussion sites that have a .org?? ;)
In Switzerland one of the main (two) supermarkets is called "COOP". In fact also in many more european countries. This are cooperations of independent supermarket owners that formed a cooperation.
So do we get coop.coop? coop.ch.coop, coop.fi.coop?
Confusing....
Try this: http://partners.nytimes.com/2000/11/27/technology/ 27NET.html
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Just so long as the sites that get the .sex TLD are actually SEX sites. Man, I really hate it when I go to my favorite .sex site and I find that it's actually a site that discusses nothing but sports and religion.
Sometimes I try to go to a sex site and I end up looking through the frickin White House's web page. Like I have time for that.
-- Mojo Tooth : exploring our world as only an idiot can.
It is very convenient that a .somecountry domain exists. If I want information on Zurich, Switzerland, I go to www.zurich.ch (and don't get some US town also named zurich). If I want to get a cheap monitor in the neighbourhood, I go to a swiss search engine (that only searches *.ch) and type "+monitor +philips", and I only get Swiss hits (which are always near since it is only a small country).
Without countrydomains, all information would be blurred, and 99% of this on your searches would come from the US, which often isn't too relevant for me.
All domains should be completely internationalized, governed over by an international NGO, working with the UN or something warm and fuzzy like that. No more of this national crap!
.ca, .ie, .us, etc. and certain should be international, with appropriate criteria. If there really is a need for .misc then it should be called that, rather than .com...
Or rather certain domains should be national, e.g.
Coop. Like Hanging at Mister Coopers house! But seriously, cooperative companies? Don't count on it. They're all out to get each other's blood. Or semen... Shout out's to Pikachu and Satori!!!
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Who gets to own the chicken.coop?
can be found here.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
Okay, moving on. Chief problems: this is a US organization. Maybe standards for cooperatives are different in other countries. In fact, I'm sure they are. That's the problem with some of these domains in control of specialied organizations. For instance, ".aero". Will it only be for US aerospace companies? What constitutes an aerospace co.? What about if an Pakistani government-owned co. wants a ".aero", except the US has some kind of embargo against them? All domains should be completely internationalized, governed over by an international NGO, working with the UN or something warm and fuzzy like that. No more of this national crap!
...until the National Cooperative Business Association sees their revenue up 10x or more from their share in name registrations. And then they'll start loosening the definition of "cooperative" until ibm.coop makes perfect sense.
The only way this kind of thing would work would be if the NCBA doesn't see any benefit from a larger subscription base. And, if that were the case, why in the world would they agree to police the namespace?
It's doomed.
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
In response to the article's title, who cares? If the average couch potato gets confused as to what makes a .coop, then he'll never use it. The current system and tld's are satisfactory; there are only a couple new tld's needed, and all domains should be country specifiable. The only reason for creation of these frivolous extensions is MONEY.
For instance, ".aero". Will it only be for US aerospace companies?
NO.Quoting from the Tidbits newsletter :
"one treats others with courtesy not because they are gentlemen or gentlewomen, but because you are" --G. Henrichs
Heck, if you really want domain names to follow strict hierarchies, just follow the same mechanism used by Usenet to create new news groups. There are dozens of people who would gladly police the creation of new domains on the basis that they don't follow "the rules".
Of course, it's been 8-9 years since I was a Usenet news admin. Maybe things have changed.
...
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Su-u-ur-r-re they have....
R David Francis
Honestly these new TLDs are totally useless. The .coop and .aero are going to be used for american companies (well there may be some flexibilty for .aero) only and therefore don't help reinforce ICANNs claims to be an international entity at all. .museum will be subject to some serious interpretation as to what exactly is a museum... i mean hell could i have my "museum of usenet porn" registered there. .biz is useless since there is already a .com (company business not to much of a difference) and .info which i personally actually like is going to be very underused. .name is in my opinion a really bad domain name but it should atleast allow people to register their names as domain names in a valid category.
The only one i think has it right is the .pro its going to be set up so that you will actually be registering a third level domain name and it will be broken into different second level domain categories. Its this kind of usenet style system that should work best. A person will then be able to identify the purpose of a site based on its name and will make the DNS system MUCH more useful. personally i see nothing wrong with yahoo.search.info as or microsoft.compsoft.com. this should also totally remove the cybersquatting issue and the stupid artificial values given to domain names.
Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind...
They were nonprofit until Andover bought out their asse[t]s. Now there's an ad banner adorning the top and the sidepanes all point to Andover/OSDN sites. Pathetic.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
If people have misused .org and .com, so what? That's like putting yourself in the wrong section of the yellow pages. People will have a hard time finding you.
Once you give someone power to decide who can register in a given domain, you also give them power over the content. Otherwise, what's to stop a business from registering in .coop and then changing their business methods so they're no longer a co-op? This is a big free speech issue.
The main reason people would be in .org when they should be in .com, for example, is that the .com name was already taken by a 100% content-free placeholder site. The solution to domain-name speculation is to eliminate the artificial shortage of TLDs. But regulating TLDs works against the whole idea of opening up more namespace.
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Well, I'm not so sure this site is easily definable as a company. A company owns it, that's true. They make money off of advertising. But it's really just a place for conversation within the geek community. There isn't a product sold by /. Yes, they have links to fatbrain and copyleft, but that is not the main focus.
/. developed a following and some "brand recognition" with slashdot.org. At what point does it become neccesary to lose that recognition to better conform with the naming standard.
.com, .net, .org system is broken. There are a lot of egregious abuses out there, like the 600+ domain names owned by Verizon. If there were any actual standards for the TLD's in place, where should the line be drawn? Is /. really abusing its TLD, or should any of the issues I mentioned have any mitigating effect?
I would argue that the site is pretty much run in the same spirit that it always has been (old-timer's bitching to the contrary). It's still just people posting their opinions on Linux, tech, and star wars topics. So while some behind the scenes stuff has changed, the site really hasn't. Does that warrant a change in the address?
Also, before it was bought by Andover,
Don't get me wrong, I think the current
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
what'sup.coop/how's_veronica?
jomamanup, signing off
what I have said before, and it still makes sense, is to have infinite TLDs. Open them all up, have a party. Then at least there is a chance for the freedom that was there before. and if MS wants to spend untold millions registering every possible name variant, they can afford to spend some of the extra cash.
as it is, now everytime a company wants to lock up a site, the need to buy up all of the variants of .com .net .org, regardless of what these meant originally. These were never really well enforced.
And don't forget about the thought police who beat on folks who had a really cool name legitimately years before the "dotcom company" came out. For an interesting story in this regard check out Toywar.com, where the story of etoy.com is documented in humorous style.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I think we need a
Then you registered at FineArtNude.coop, claiming that you were really a cooperative of photographers working together to promote each other's work. You were expelled from this TLD as well because the .coop registrar determined that your material could cause erections in websurfers who were incapable of understanding your URL or the warnings on your splash page.
Most recently, you have been registered with us at XXX TLD, Inc., Where Erotic Pictures Are Sent to Make Them Easier to Censor. However, our hard-working employees, in the course of diligently surfing our TLD for abuse, have now determined that some of your images might be considered artistic rather than pornographic. Furthermore, some end-users have complained that not all of your images are of female bodies. Some of these users became sexually aroused before their trembling hands could move the mouse to the back button, thereby causing them to question their own sexual orientations.
Under ICANN's new three strikes rule, your servers have been marked for physical destruction.
XXX TLD, Inc., constantly strives to give the best possible service. If you have any questions regarding this e-mail, please speak to one of our Customer Service Technicians at 1-800-scr-ewyu. Due to the high volume of calls, you may experience delays.
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I was wondering why the new TLD's were so odd. It seemed like there would not be a huge demand for .museum or .aero. These new ones wouldn't really relieve namespace overcrowding. Apparently, ICAAN wants to see the catagories used appropriately, and not have the chaos of .com, .net, and .org. If they can police these narrow new TLD's, then they will approve more.
It's an interesting idea, and a worthy one. But it seems messed up to me that ICAAN is worried about being unable to police the use or misuse of TLD's. Isn't that one of the main reasons they were created? If they can't control it, then perhaps a new administrative body is needed.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
Which nation is the NCBA refering to in its name? I think I can guess.
One of the big problems with the gTLDs we have is that they were based on the assumption that they were for the U.S. but in reality their namespaces are used globally, which increases clashes.
This is a good illustration why closing down the gTLDs to new registrations would be a better solution than adding more. ICANN are just repeating the mistakes of the original DNS designers without the defence of being pioneers.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
TLD namespace control does nothing more than exacerbate the existing artificial monopoly. There is no technical reason at all for having a set number of TLDs. Putting more control of TLDs in the hands of any organization just encourages that organization to abuse said control.
Or: Who will watch the watchers?
Free the TLDs! Open the root servers! Decentralize DNS!
Leading the partnership for a Slashdot-Free Slashdot, Son of Dog
It's good, because .com, .net, .org are (basicly) all the same now (infact many things I've read say you should always register all three, even if you only fit into one of the catgorys
.coop is 4 letters, insted of the normal 3...this scares idiots
.com (this sounds stupid, but I'd say a good chunk of computer users who don't know anything but .com domains exist...yes...we do have people that stupid useing computers
It's bad, because:
.coop doesnt exactly yell out "this is a domain for a non-profit group"
.coop isnt
The opinions in this post are ficticious. Any similarity to actual opinions, real or imagined, is purely coincidental.
From the article:
.BIZ alone is charging $2000 (see Wired), so even if the other six were all free, the average would still be almost $300.
The proposed registration fee, $75, is much higher than the fees proposed by the other winning sites, which average about $5.
The average is hella higher than $5.
Kind of ridiculous when so many registrars are reg'ing the big three TLDs (.com/.net/.org) for $10 and less per year. Joker.com's down to around $9, $8 in bulk, on what I think is a $6 fixed cost they pay. So much for competition of other TLDs driving down prices. I doubt anybody who shells $50,000 per TLD (non-refundable) application fee with a 3% chance of approval (7 out of 210+ TLDs were approved) for a niche market is going to charge $8.
Gads...I just realized ICANN took in $11 million on the initial appliciations...and they're trying to revoke country domains for impoverished and unrepresented nations like Haiti and Brazzaville if they don't pony up?
Speaking for myself I'm quite glad that .com, .org, and .net domains are not "better regulated". Given that I represent neither a company, an organization, or a computer network, would I be prevented from registering under such domains if these were strongly regulated? What if I started with a .org site and later it became a full-fledged company? Would non .xxx sites be forbidden from carrying XXX content? Enforcing classification of TLDs according to type is not necessarily a good thing. There's a real need for generic TLDs that allow for sites that evolve, present dynamic content, or are difficult to classify.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
The fact that people had to resort to using .com, .net, and .org TLDs as generic appendages is, in my opinion, a symptom of the flaws inherent in such a classification system. It shouldn't be strongly regulated.
.com domain. It's possible then that a company might not find a domain if forced to move from one class to another. They shouldn't be forced to drop the domain name they've registered under, a name people already identify the website with.
Consider there may be several companies sharing the same name, all having equal rights to a regulated
If you as a visitor would like to know whether company X is an NOC, a company in Mongolia, or a personal page then simply look at the site's content. If people need to confirm a company's non-profit status then perhaps the website could display a certificate granted by whatever agency non-profit organizations must register with.
The point is that TLD classification according to type makes it easier to pigeonhole websites and therefore restrict their content. This should never happen. There should always be room for unrestricted content domain names. We need less bureaucracy, not more. The drawbacks of strongly regulated domains are worse than the benefits, which may very well be obtained through alternative means.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
should read:
Domain names aren't used for routing, so they needn't help you find a server's particular location within a network.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
The net has gotten where it has because of anarchy, not because of top-down hierarchical organization by some distant bureaucracy.
I'd love to see how far things have gotten with IP addreses being handed out at random...
heh. I'd mod this parent up... (+1, funny)
:)Fudboy
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm only a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta
>a mess should really be the second level
>domains
Just to mention, it's .gov and .mil, top level domains in their own right, not .gov.us and .mil.us-- the second-level domains under .us are state abbreviations (.mn.us, for example).
M
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
I'm not quite sure about the uptake of .coop for that matter but what is more interesting is how ".com" focused companies are going to react.
.coop"?
.coop will not be as great as many internet users have experienced the high and low events of the ".com" these past years (and there is so much more to look forward to)....On the otherhand, the Internet and its users is known to change in many areas.
.com or .coop?"
For example what is Sun going to say? "We are the . in
I feel the takeup of
"Do you
The /. crew is a bit slow.
Go Here instead (you don't have to register).
Happy Holidays!
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
If you can think of a reason why the registration companys would want to turn people away with hot money in their hand, let me know.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Yup. ICANN.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I really want to know if those of us with a last name of Cooper can get a domain in .coop. I think it'd be great to be micah.coop!
About the .org comment... When it was just Taco and Hemos working out of their dorm room, it was properly registered as a .org. Is it really practical to change the TLD because they got bought out? How do you deal with sites that evolve into something new?
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.