Slashdot Mirror
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?)
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.
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'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.
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".
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
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
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 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?? ;)
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.
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.
Who gets to own the chicken.coop?
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.
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
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.
--
Find free books.
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"
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.
--
Find free books.
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.
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.
(end comment) */ }
(end comment) */ }
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
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?
Consider there may be several companies sharing the same name, all having equal rights to a regulated .com domain.
.com domain would contain exactly zero companies which only operated in a specific geographical area.
And can you give an example of two globally operating companies with the same name? Since a properly regulated
he point is that TLD classification according to type makes it easier to pigeonhole websites and therefore restrict their content.
Ordered classification makes things easier for people, it makes sense for the same reason that TV and radio stations don't use random frequences and libraries don't simply put books on shelves in random order.
There should always be room for unrestricted content domain names
Having room for "unrestricted content" is not the same as having everything as random content.
What is the point of having TLDs as abbreviations for something, if they don't actually mean something. They might as well be a random set of letters and digits.
And at the same time why bother with hierarchically structured addresses and telephone numbers, just assign a random 30 digit number to any phone line on the planet, a random set of letters to every building and for that matter a random (unique) name to every person.
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?
.com is that it would also restict companies to using some version of their actual name.
.xxx sites be forbidden from carrying XXX content?
.misc or .dymamic Rather than treating everything else as .misc, to be honest the whole of .com, .org and .net may as well be renamed .misc
If things were regulated then either
a) you'd have to change your name anyway in order to become a company because there was already a company with your name
b) that name would be free since you would be the first company to use it.
The point about proper regulation of
Would non
Possibly, if their domain name was misleading.
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 that case what's needed is something like
The whole point of well ordered and regulated domains is to make things simpler for people. e.g. so they know foobar.net is a NOC rather than some company in Mongolia, that foobar.com.ny.us is company in New York state, USA not the personal page of an Astralian, etc.
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...
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
Try http://channel.nytimes.com/2000/11/27/technology/2 7NET.html. (Props to Jorn Barger for pointing out the channel.nytimes.com backdoor.)
-jon
Yup. ICANN.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.