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VeriSign Usurps .com
Big news today is that ICANN's staff - you know, the unelected unaccountable corporation that controls most of the world's domain names? those guys? - has struck up a deal with Verisign (the company that purchased Network Solutions, if you recall). The terms of the deal are just wonderful - Verisign will retain permanent control of the .com registry (they were supposed to separate the registry and registrar businesses), long-term control of .net (plenty of time to make that permanent too), and .org will actually be spun off. There are also apparently plans to reinstate the old limits on .org domains - if you aren't a non-profit corporation, you won't be permitted to register or keep a .org domain. ICANN is taking public comments on this issue before their Board votes on it at their next meeting.
There are also apparently plans to reinstate the old limits on .org domains - if you aren't a non-profit corporation, you won't be permitted to register or keep a .org domain.
There never were any such limits. Read RFC 1591
In fact, although I can't find into on the IANA website anymore (it's all been "updated"), .org used to be specifically recommended as the place for individuals who wanted their own domain.
Anything more limiting than this wouldn't be old rules -- it'd be something completely new. If new TLDs are created which serve as functional replacements (something for personal and family domains, something for software projects, etc., etc.), that's all well and good for the future, but it's ridiculous and unfair to take away existing .org domains.
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So it looks like those jerks who brought slashdot.NET/COM have it made, eh?
In 1997, I registered the domain name moby.org for my unofficial, noncommercial Moby fan site. It is not for profit, but it is not a nonprofit corporation. Should I be worried that this domain may be taken away from me in the future because of a tightening of .org rules?
Companies with negative profits can't use .com, they have to use the inverse, .moc , and we can call it, 'being mocked'. Kinda like delisting, but more prevalent, variable, and hellish on routing!
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
The usual slashdot blurb, hyping things up. This is only a proposal, and there is, ostensibly, time to comment on it and change it.
.com domain to present themselves as a "respectable" and "mainstream" organization. For the rest of us plebs, we can do pretty damn well with the plethora of two letter TLDs around the world (try the NICs of .cx and .fm for example).
.com rights to one of slashdot's favourite bugbears (pick one, there's enough around).
To be honest, I don't have a problem with these proposals. It's only big business which should do, because they need a
And it's not as if Verisign is a bloodsucking corporation anyway. Imagine if they'd sold
Overall - this is so not a big deal.
The US domain should have
Down with
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They blew it in the first place by not enforcing the regulations just so they could make more money encouragnig everyone to register the same name under .com, .net, and .org.
.com for commercial entities
.net for network infrastructure
.org for other organistations.
They let it down.. and NOW they wanna go back to the other way after taking everyone's money.
Time for new root servers.
Well, a private commercial company is not accountable to its consumers when it is in a situation of control over a monopoly. It is only accountable to its shareholders, and it makes very few people with respect to the Internet users.
when then pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Rather than completely post what I already did to another paniced message, let me summarize --
Whomever submitted this to Slashdot in some way mis-read a word in the ICANN proposal.
That one word was 'organization', and not 'corporation'. In section D-2:
Now, technically, that may not be exactly what the original intention for
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
After reading everyone's overreactions (especially michael's), I went and actually read the proposal! Guess what, kids? This is a win-win.
If VeriSign spun off the NSI registrar business by May 2001, they were going to get an automatic 4-year extension on running the .com, .net, and .org registries. Under this new proposal, they won't have to spin off the registrar entirely, merely make it a subsidiary company. In exchange, they are guaranteed to give up .org after only a two-year extension, and help fund their successor in .org for a while, to the tune of $5 million. They are giving up 22 months of their extension on .net (although they still get preference for extensions there).
Last but not least, they are going to be investing $200 million in research on improving the DNS system and giving better access to the root nameservers to ccTLD and other TLD registries.
As other posts pointed out, there is no reason to expect that individuals or open-source projects would be excluded from the .org domain after it changes hands. How is any of this a bad thing?
Right...
Really, how long do you think it will be before they require all .com registrations to be real companies?
.com is exluded from claiming any non-dotcom address. This would keep mcdonalds.com from also claiming mcdonalds.org and mcdonalds.net ad infinitum. There might be some allowances to allow mcdonalds.co.uk or .co.au, where they can show a valid, physical business presence.
.com, all the other speculations such as verizonreallysucks.com would be eliminated, drying up the revenue.
.sucks, .tm, and probably even .sex and .xxx. Then there couldn't be a pentium.com, intel would have to register it under pentium.tm if they wanted to have a dedicated website.
This is the way it should be. If you obtain a domain name under one TLD, it should preclude you from obtaining the same under any other TLDs. It could be in the agreement/eula/ToS that a company which claims an address on
This would end most domain speculation, force everyone to be under the most correct TLD, and keep the lawyers at bay. Sanity would rule, the WIPO jackrabbit courts would essentially cease to exist, and the rest of us could get on with building a better network for the future.
Since this would end much domain speculation, the income from domain registry would be significantly less than over the last few years. With only real commercial enitities paying for
If this were to happen, there would be a strong need for
A very good idea, which has been suggested by many intelligent people on numerous occasions. It has always been shot down by the ICANN as unworkable because they pander only to commercial interests, especially billion dollar companies like Network Solutions, who don't want to see their cash cow killed.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
The post by michael says, "There are also apparently plans to reinstate the old limits on .org domains - if you aren't a non-profit corporation, you won't be permitted to register or keep a .org domain."
But the WSJ article you're referencing says something completely different, "Icann indicated that it wants "org" Web addresses reserved only for nonprofit organizations "after some appropriate transition period," a restriction that hasn't been enforced in recent years. Details haven't been worked out, though one Icann official suggested that current "org" Web sites may be allowed to continue regardless of their affiliation with nonprofits."
Don't you folks even care about accuracy anymore, or have you been reading Microsoft FUD for so long that you've decided on a "if you can't beat them, join them" policy?
He pointed out that he has already made a post about this on ICANN's Public forum. When I mentioned that I didn't think it was clear enough, and asked him to clarify further to avoid a lot of confusion, he responded that they were "discussing this internally".
This tells me the following:
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It's not set in stone that you have to be a legally-recognized non-profit to hold a
.org TLD under the proposed changes
- They haven't worked out all the details yet
- They at least appear concerned with the public opinion (read his post)
Granted, I'm not a huge fan of ICANN's previous activities, but I will say Mike was responsive and courteous in his emails. Perhaps if we voice our opinions just as politely and courteously (rather than flaming them about) we might get somewhere.Sign me eternally optomistic...
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