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?)

Comments

Re:Obligatory ".org" reference here...

[Psiren]

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.

Let's not forget the most important question

[andyh1978]

Who gets to own the chicken.coop?

Obligatory ".org" reference here...

[iElucidate]

Slashdot should be ".com". Look who's talking.

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!

Re:Obligatory ".org" reference here...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

You are right that TLDs won't go away. I think the problem is that it appears that with the current DNS system as it is has to be centralized in some way, else if it were distributed you could have any number of destinations for a given URL. I don't expect the UN or any international body like that to really help here.

The US having a monopoly of the internet? There is a truth to that but I don't feel it's a monopoly in any strict term except on the .org, .mil, .com and the .edu and that's the name service only, I think there are a lot of non-US groups that own domain names in .org and .com. I really wouldn't expect a different outcome if any other country had developed networking technology first and became the Internet leader. I think the fact that (I heard) 70% of the internet's users are in the US means that the US would naturally have the infastructure and vice-versa.

The only reason that we have chaos now is that few were checking if a .com applicant really was a an org intending to be a .com, the registrars just took the money an ran with it as they had no mandate or perogative to check these things, they aren't a city zoning board.

I honestly think it will take some sort of regulation to fix things and that isn't going to happen.

In short, there are no easy answers. I'll have to hunt down and hurt the person that told me that technology solves problems. Some jerk.

Dear registrant,...

[bcrowell]

...A routine audit of our records has shown that you are a habitual abuser of the domain-name system. First you put your site at FineArtNude.com, but you were expelled, since listing under .com was inappropriate for a site that didn't charge people for access.

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.

--

I was wondering

[L-Train8]

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.

Re:partners link...

[tregoweth]

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