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.biz Open For Biz

Angry Black Man writes: "November 7, 2001 marks a new historic event in domain name suffixes. Neulevel's press release is reporting that the .biz domains went live last night at 12:00." And if you can follow that link, I guess they're live for you too. Anyone going to buy a .biz domain? .info might be used, but .biz just sounds silly/sleazy to me.

243 comments

  1. New net lingo opportunity! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's none of your .biz, man!

  2. Chickenbum.biz.......! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I got it.......I got it.......!!

  3. Yay. by Pahroza · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Oh happy happy joy joy.

    Doesn't feel very historic to me.

  4. Yeah, but... by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 1

    Sure, .biz sounds sleazy... but so does Neulevel. Clearly sleaze is not a barrier of entry for these people. I'm sure the CRM and spam folks will dig it too.

    --

    There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
  5. Dodgy english Eurovision song contest domain by Mr+Thinly+Sliced · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    fucks.biz

  6. Wait and See by quinto2000 · · Score: 1

    Now the question is...will the existing commercial .com'ers migrate over to .biz? I think it will be some time yet before I try a .biz tld before a .com.

    --
    Ceci n'est pas un post
    1. Re:Wait and See by Anders · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Now the question is...will the existing commercial .com'ers migrate over to .biz? I think it will be some time yet before I try a .biz tld before a .com.

      Yeah, but when the time comes and .biz gets well-known, you'd better have your company name registered. I think most of the initial registrations will be of the "better safe than sorry" kind than because .biz is thought to be a clever TLD.

      The same goes for other of the new TLDs, of course.

    2. Re:Wait and See by GnulixRulz · · Score: 1
      Exactly. Even though to my ears .biz sounds incredibly cheap, expect to see www.ibm.biz coming up soon.

      BTW, they seem to answer dns queries for any host, like buyused.pantieshere.biz.

    3. Re:Wait and See by Anders · · Score: 1

      Even though to my ears .biz sounds incredibly cheap [...]

      While I generally agree (but also believe it is a matter of what you are used to), show.biz does have some appeal. Are there other obvious combinations?

    4. Re:Wait and See by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      Actually a company I have done some consulting with has registered under .biz and plans to migrate much of there operations and advertising that direction-- they are an above board business and certainly not one that is considered sleazy. I also know of a client's client-- a doctor who has made much use of networking that has already registered a .biz address.

    5. Re:Wait and See by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      noneofya.biz / mindyourown.biz

  7. fear.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    scientology.biz!

  8. All domains resolve! by DaSyonic · · Score: 5, Informative

    Lookup ANY .biz domain, even random characters. It resolves, to 209.173.53.173, which the web server there says basically: "Hey, want to buy this domain?"

    Now to me, That is just NOT acceptable, and totally is NOT how DNS for a TLD should be done!

    --

    Linux: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste.
    James Brents
    1. Re:All domains resolve! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How strong is that server? They *are* a TLD, but they look like they might be too pointy-haired...

      Why don't we all check to see if that resolve process works? :) Then again, maybe they'll relent as they get hit with all the .biz 404's they can handle... that should *really* up their traffic...

      IMO, this is cheesey marketing and should be ended. I suspect they'll learn that the hard way, so there's no point in delaying the lesson, SFAIK...

    2. Re:All domains resolve! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is just Capitalism for you. Does anyone work in a company where they are thinking about purchasing a .biz domain?

    3. Re:All domains resolve! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      And they run linux :-) I wonder if netcraft.com is smart enough to realize asdfasd.biz and dilfbg.biz are the same site. If not, then this could be an easy way for people to totally screw up the netcraft survey (I guess they'd have to ban any domains resolving to that IP).

    4. Re:All domains resolve! by PyroMosh · · Score: 5, Funny

      So what you're saying is

      All your .biz are resolve to 209.173.53.173?

      Okay, sorry, I couldn't resist! (:

    5. Re:All domains resolve! by Moridineas · · Score: 1

      Why not?

      Scott

    6. Re:All domains resolve! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Easy fix. Start posting on Usenet as something@somethingelse.biz. Or just start mentioning things in the form of foo@bar.biz. Anything matching that general form will eventually get spammed once they update their filters to match .biz in addition to .com and so forth.

      I'm sure they'll do something about that wildcard DNS situation soon enough if enough people do this.

    7. Re:All domains resolve! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      The blurry dead eyes of the folks at the top of the screen scare me...

    8. Re:All domains resolve! by Penguin · · Score: 5, Informative

      ... and furthermore, the webserver gives a "200 OK" as a response for a non-existing domain and no expire-date in the HTTP-header. Although no "Last-Modified"-header is supplied and the page might not be at all that cacheable, it is just plain wrong giving such a "correct" answer for a page that shouldn't exist in the first place.

      It seems that the "security", NeuLevel provides, doesn't concern themselves.

      --
      - Peter Brodersen; professional nerd
    9. Re:All domains resolve! by MavEtJu · · Score: 3, Funny

      [~] edwin@k7>telnet blaatblaatblaat.biz smtp
      Trying 209.173.53.173...
      telnet: connect to address 209.173.53.173: Connection refused
      telnet: Unable to connect to remote host


      Oooooh damned damned damned! That would be big spam-fun!

      Edwin

      --
      bash$ :(){ :|:&};:
    10. Re:All domains resolve! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Capitalism should be written with a lower case "C" in the same way as satanism with a lower case "s".

      Capitalism is nothing but pure greed made a virtue.

    11. Re:All domains resolve! by Erik+Hensema · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A much nicer sollution is used by the Danish: go visit dk to register a .dk domain.

      I've heard this may fail in msie though.

      --

      This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.

    12. Re:All domains resolve! by Erik+Hensema · · Score: 2

      Alright, I was spreading FUD. It does seem to work in msie too.

      --

      This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.

    13. Re:All domains resolve! by Penguin · · Score: 1

      Usually you could use http://dk./ (with a dot in the end to indicate an absolute hostname) for the situations where "dk" isn't enough.

      And yeah, it's pretty sweet. Unfortunately dk. is also present in rfc-ignorant:

      http://www.rfc-ignorant.org/tools/detail.cgi?dom ai n=dk&submitted=996620699&table=whois

      ... due to some lame excuse about sensitive data that WHOIS-lookups aren't permitted, although their website gives the opportunity (and a bit of "LWP::Simple"-magic would do the trick), AND they still have an unused role for these situations.

      --
      - Peter Brodersen; professional nerd
    14. Re:All domains resolve! by midom · · Score: 5, Informative
      It will have plenty of negative impact.

      • SMTP sender check is no longer valid.
      • Instead of bouncing 'domain not found' messages smtp servers will have to wait until port 25 responds (argh, tons of mail in queues, tons of bounces later)
      • Scripts checking for existing domain (host) names will have to be redone to check the stupid damn undocumented IP address instead of normal NULL answer in resolver libs... Guys, this isn't only domain registration (more banners for registrars page) thing!
      • Rest in peace John, but the organisation you left isn't listening to your advices and design. Your voice is required here.
      • It is not standards conformant. Internet should be based on standards, because without normal common language we won't be able to talk.

      I am working for ISP in .lt, that also focuses on web hosting and mail solutions and in both spheres I really hate what happens right now. As well as unneeded .biz TLD - maybe it has some urgency in USA where guys forgot they've got local TLD (.us) and even classified ones.

      I hated new.net with their new suffixes, but right now I'm really angry about what official institutions (ICANN) are doing - adding banners to non-existing A records. Pals, this is application implementation, how it should display non-existing pages, not network information backend's.

    15. Re:All domains resolve! by wik · · Score: 1

      Domain monger did a similar thing to me a few weeks ago. I had my DNS handled by their servers. They claim that one of their DS3's was nailed by a backhoe, so they just made all hosts under my domain (registered or not) resolve to one of their ads webservers.

      Why they couldn't make it resolve to a server saying "we're having technical problems, this is not a sales pitch" is beyond me. Needless to say, they got lots of ssh connections to that box while I tried to figure out what was happening (and tried to remember my IP addresses).

      --
      / \
      \ / ASCII ribbon campaign for peace
      x
      / \
    16. Re:All domains resolve! by gimpboy · · Score: 0

      Thats how I write christianity also.

      --
      -- john
    17. Re:All domains resolve! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In Opera you need to goto http://DK./ not http://DK/ .. going to the latter means going to www.dk.com

    18. Re:All domains resolve! by Pfhreakaz0id · · Score: 2

      not for me. I get a page not found... IE 5.5sp2

    19. Re:All domains resolve! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you just used a capital "C" twice

    20. Re:All domains resolve! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I stopped caring too long ago to care about such nonsense. DNS stopped being about mapping easy to remember names to domain names as soon as the new top level TLDs came out, anyway.

    21. Re:All domains resolve! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As old and played out as that joke is, I have to admit that that one made me laugh. Ha. :)

    22. Re:All domains resolve! by marnanel · · Score: 2

      It's nothing new: .nu has been doing it for a while.

      --
      GROGGS: alive and well and living in
    23. Re:All domains resolve! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      It is not standards conformant. Internet should be based on standards, because without normal common language we won't be able to talk.

      What do you mean, we won't be able to talk because of nonconformance?? It says right in the paper:

      More Than A Better Web Address for Business The development of the .BIZ registry system started with a clean sheet of paper and represents far more than the addition of much needed domain name real estate. Not burdened by legacy systems ill-equipped for dealing with today's security challenges, .BIZ provides its users with higher levels of security - ensuring that .BIZ registered addresses can not be "hijacked" in the future or otherwise incapacitated.

      See?? Everything is fixed! There will be no problems and you will enjoy .biz.

    24. Re:All domains resolve! by Dr.+Awktagon · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yeah I went to microsoft.biz and sure enough there was a banner (with a freaky blurred photo of two people with no eyes, shiver) and an offer to buy. Well, shucks, if microsoft doesn't want it, can I buy it??

    25. Re:All domains resolve! by Archfeld · · Score: 2

      IE 6.0 here at work and I get a 404 as well

      --
      errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
    26. Re:All domains resolve! by Gud · · Score: 1


      I (and probably others) complained and this has been fixed.

    27. Re:All domains resolve! by PsykhoKiwi · · Score: 1

      Well I guess you'd better tell that to enic.cc aswell
      because they do the same thing..actually they do worse because the page that comes up says either:

      We have great news for you! The domain SAFGHASHAWERH.CC is not currently registered. This means that you may register the domain now, before anyone else registers it.
      or

      Welcome To The Domain 351972561234546.CC This domain is under construction. Please check back at a later date for updates, or to get more information about the domain, you may email the registrant using the link below.

      Its the second one that's silly.

      --
      Just remember that if the world didn't suck we'd all fall off.
  9. If the site is /.ed... by tunah · · Score: 1

    There's a mirror at lucrativedomain.biz

    --
    Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
  10. Why not .doc or .lnx? or even .apple, .orange? by GdoL · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I would like to see more .something why not .my language and .notenglish for oher guys on the planet, .mars could be an good idea for X-Files!!

    --

    ------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
    1. Re:Why not .doc or .lnx? or even .apple, .orange? by GdoL · · Score: 1

      .AS incere S oul ? Hey, thank you!

      --

      ------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
    2. Re:Why not .doc or .lnx? or even .apple, .orange? by Penguin · · Score: 1

      .mars wouldn't be any problem, although current rules require a represent from the origin.

      Marvin the Martian, maybe?

      --
      - Peter Brodersen; professional nerd
    3. Re:Why not .doc or .lnx? or even .apple, .orange? by GdoL · · Score: 1

      "men come from mars and women come from venus", someone said.

      --

      ------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
  11. Wait and See Your Face Smashed In by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    PRICK! I'd like to see my fist migrate into your face, you stupid shit eating freak.

  12. Let me guess by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I venture to guess that most of the ".biz" domains are porn and
    get-rich-quick sites. Somehow "www.vatican.biz" seems unlikely.

  13. Let me be the first to say it: by Nailer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This sucks

    Name a business that's not a commercial entity or a not for profit organization. There aren't any. Hence .biz is a redundant domain and a blatant money making scheme for Neulevel.

    If namespace limits are a concern, then fix the registration policies in the US. In Au, a clever fellow called Robery Elz banned the registration of generic words, and limited the amount of domains a single company could use. This would go some way towards solving the problem.

    So would migrating every .com over to .us or another country code over a five year period. Trademarks are register on a country by country basic and domains should be too.

    Or including multipek fields (Apple (computer) as in computer products, Apple (records) as in music) in a new namespace.

    Oh well. I think .biz will die in the ass anyway, so my little rant doesn't do anything much any.

    1. Re:Let me be the first to say it: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
      In Au, a clever fellow called Robery Elz banned the registration of generic words

      Wouldn't "cyber" be considered a generic word, or is the ban not retroactive?

      (for the confused, look at the parents webpage url)

    2. Re:Let me be the first to say it: by aengblom · · Score: 1

      This *could* be used for the many entities whose websites are not for a corporate audience. For example, Slashdot.biz might link to a website providing information about the history of slashdot, contact information, who owns it, how to invest, what businesses it's in etc etc.

      --


      So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
    3. Re:Let me be the first to say it: by SCHecklerX · · Score: 1, Troll
      If namespace limits are a concern, then fix the registration policies in the US. In Au, a clever fellow called Robery Elz banned the registration of generic words, and limited the amount of domains a single company could use. This would go some way towards solving the problem.

      Limited them? The limit should be ONE!. Why does ANY company need more than one domain (other than parent and holding companies)????

      That is why DNS is tiered, dammit. If I am foo.com, then I might have east.foo.com, west.foo.com, and then things like mail.east.foo.com, mail.west.foo.com (geography) or perhaps firstfloor.printers.foo.com, secondfloor.printers.foo.com (by device type in a small company) etc. And internally they can use a fake domain if they really want to. That's what I do here at home.

      Damned clueless bastards.

    4. Re:Let me be the first to say it: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You obvously dont know much about how business is structed do you :-)

      Companys often have more than one legal entity at the same time

  14. Oh Puh-leez by ajuda · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How many domains to we really need? This is sooo obviously a marketing ploy to get everyone to spend more money on domains they don't need. Owners of Ford.com will buy Ford.biz, Dell.com will soon have dell.biz. Are they any better off for .biz? Of course not.

    Sure, some new people will take advantage of .biz domains. But now users have to remember even longer addresses for each website. Let's see, did I want to go to Shopping.com, shopping.org, shopping.net, shopping.biz or shopping.info? Enough already!

    1. Re:Oh Puh-leez by smaughster · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >. Let's see, did I want to go to Shopping.com, shopping.org, shopping.net, shopping.biz or shopping.info? Enough already!

      Actually, this is a consequence of earlier mess-ups with domain names. I mean, we are currently "blessed" with domain names which are either regionally focussed (.uk etc.) or fall into a few large categories (.com/.org). In my opinion, regional domain names do not really make sense, since the whole point about internet is its global reach. Furthermore, the most well known domain names (.com, .org) are used as collection bins where everyone with a site wants to fall in. It would make much more sense if the rules for domain name categories were held more strict and if these categories were made more clear.

      I mean, the distinction between .gov and .edu is clear, but .com or .biz? But if we keep holding on to the "few different domain names is good" idea, instead of "quite a few easy but understandle domain names is good" then this problem will remain.

      --
      I intend to live forever, so far so good.
    2. Re:Oh Puh-leez by Master+Of+Ninja · · Score: 0

      Got to agree. It just seems like a big marketing scam where the companies have to buy extra domain names to 'protect' their trademark (or whatever) whenever new domains are issued.

      However while .biz might be too close to .com for companies, the BBC reports that the .info is quite popular for (guess what!) actually giving out information!

      Their example was the WTC relief site. They also said that both .biz and .info are actually quite popular, although quite a lot are bogus registrations. I don't think .biz is going to make a mojor impact on the web due to the ubiquity of .com (for business and personal use) but you shouldn't be surprised to see billboards with .biz on them in the near future.

    3. Re:Oh Puh-leez by mgv · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Regional codes make sense when your business is regional - eg., your local video store, or even the local head office of an international business. Likewise the .gov.au makes alot of sense as compared with .au.gov.

      So, in my opinion, regionalisation makes sense for regional stuff. Which is why you need and have a .us, althogh it is underused.

      I'm hoping that all the dot.com startups that bought out every .com/.net name are running out of money by now and will at least open up the chance everyone getting a more memorable TLD than MyPreferredURLIsAlreadyTaken.com

      Michael

      --
      There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
    4. Re:Oh Puh-leez by mpe · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually, this is a consequence of earlier mess-ups with domain names. I mean, we are currently "blessed" with domain names which are either regionally focussed (.uk etc.) or fall into a few large categories (.com/.org)

      Except that .com, .net, .org have in effect been treated as .misc for quite a few years.

      In my opinion, regional domain names do not really make sense, since the whole point about internet is its global reach.

      On the contrary it's non geographic domains which make little sense for a whole set of things. Especially the sale of physical goods, even for non physical goods such as downloadable software or "ebooks" the physical location of the supplier is an important issue both in what currency you use and in the exact contract of sale which is entered into.
      Telephones and "snail mail" also has "global reach", but you don't see demands for everyone to use non geographic telephone numbers and postal addresses (Typically if someone want's a less or even non geographic telephone number or postal address they pay extra for it. Ditto if it has some kind of "vanity content".)

    5. Re:Oh Puh-leez by mpe · · Score: 2

      Regional codes make sense when your business is regional - eg., your local video store, or even the local head office of an international business.

      This is the vast majority of business anyway.

    6. Re:Oh Puh-leez by smcv · · Score: 1

      The Community Education (adult education, evening classes etc.) bit of my local secondary school (for non-Brits: school for kids aged 11-16) had a .com address - but the area they're useful to extends about 10 miles. They don't even really have a *regional* reach...

      As you say, many US commercial sites (those whose products are something physical rather than information) don't really have much usefulness outside the USA. Anyone remember when bbc.co.uk was the (very much international) British Broadcasting Corporation, but bbc.com was something like Baltimore Business Computers Inc.?

    7. Re:Oh Puh-leez by snookums · · Score: 1

      It has been suggested before, and I think it's a great idea, so I'll re-iterate.

      Why not have unlimited TLDs? The rule would be that anybody could register any TLD that they like, but nobody could own it or restrict the second-level domains that are attached to it. So microsoft could register support.microsoft, but not prevent me from registering idontlike.microsoft.

      The idea here is that there would be so many possible TLDs that there could never be the insane gold-rush that happens with limited TLDs.

      --
      Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
    8. Re:Oh Puh-leez by Ed+Avis · · Score: 1

      bbc.com was Boston Business Consulting. I wonder how much money they got...

      --
      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    9. Re:Oh Puh-leez by Roblimo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      So true.

      The domain I really wanted when I was still active in the limo business was roblimo.md.us because it would have told people where we were (Maryland, USA) at a glance. The old .us domain pattern of including the town and county (roblimo.elkridge.howard.md.us) added too much granularity and was too cumbersome to remember easily, which is why I never got interested in that one.

      For local businesses I believe city.state/province.country or just state/province.country is best both for the business owner and potential customers.

      I have gotten massive spam urging me to get a .biz domain, but I see no point to having one. I can claim copyright infringement against anyone who uses "Roblimo" in other TLDs if I choose, except perhaps against the Robin Miller in Baltimore, County Cork, Ireland who has a small limo service there, and I think he and I would be more likely to put up a "joint" page than argue, since we're certainly not competing with each other. :)

      - Robin

    10. Re:Oh Puh-leez by mpe · · Score: 2

      As you say, many US commercial sites (those whose products are something physical rather than information) don't really have much usefulness outside the USA.

      There are plenty far more restricted than that, a group of adjacent states, a single state, a city even part of a city.
      Let alone that USA isn't even a single land mass.

    11. Re:Oh Puh-leez by mpe · · Score: 2

      The domain I really wanted when I was still active in the limo business was roblimo.md.us because it would have told people where we were (Maryland, USA) at a glance. The old .us domain pattern of including the town and county (roblimo.elkridge.howard.md.us) added too much granularity and was too cumbersome to remember easily, which is why I never got interested in that one.

      The exact format can be rather subjective. Having a city (even part of a city) can be rather important if the business is located in a large conurbation. But potentially misleading in a non urbanised area.

    12. Re:Oh Puh-leez by transcend.ca · · Score: 1

      What's also important is language differences. I am in Germany right now and there are in fact very few dot.com's listed when you see advertisement -- most are .de to signify they are german businesses, but also that they are likely to be IN german. Likewise france uses .fr and switzerland .ch a lot more than people in the USA use .us. I think geographical TL domains make a lot of sense in this context. When I go to www.bed-and-breakfast.de, I'm expecting to see listings of bed and breakfast's in Germany, not just in the country of whoever decided to registed B&B.com. Essentially, .com is the US domain name + generic usage.

    13. Re:Oh Puh-leez by imadork · · Score: 2
      In my opinion, regional domain names do not really make sense, since the whole point about internet is its global reach.

      Except that current laws are very country-specific, even if the Internet isn't. Trademark law, in particular. can vary in teeny bits from country to country. Having country-specific domain names (where disputes could be governed under the rules of that country) could lead to easier resolution of disputes. (Of course, it doesn't in practice, and we're back to Square 1).

    14. Re:Oh Puh-leez by LinuxHam · · Score: 2

      anybody could register any TLD that they like, but nobody could own it or restrict the second-level domains that are attached to it.

      I'm sure you realize that would totally break DNS. Just imagine the load on the world root servers if they couldn't delegate down? Yeesh..

      --
      Intelligent Life on Earth
    15. Re:Oh Puh-leez by julesh · · Score: 1
      Actually, in the UK at least, it's rare to have to pay to have a non-geographic telephone number these days (unless you get it from BT!). Many companies will even pay you to use one...

      Obvious exceptions apply for 0800 numbers, etc.!

    16. Re:Oh Puh-leez by Reality+Master+101 · · Score: 2

      I'm sure you realize that would totally break DNS. Just imagine the load on the world root servers if they couldn't delegate down?

      Considering that probably 85-90% of the traffic is for .com, we effectively already have that world.

      --
      Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
    17. Re:Oh Puh-leez by Eimi+Metamorphoumai · · Score: 1

      How much worse is that than the load on the root .com servers? Maybe I don't know dns that well, but it seems like you're not saving anything, really, just rearranging it.

      --

      Visit me on #weirdness on the Galaxynet.

    18. Re:Oh Puh-leez by DrSpin · · Score: 1
      Sure, all of us want Alamo Car Rentals and Barnes and Noble, regardless of what we actually search for.

      I recently tried to search for information on "Swiss Lace", in "Swiss German", in "Switzerland". (Using the Swiss German terms for these things). Somehow, the answer was still Barnes and Noble and Alamo Car Rentals.

      I do not need ANY New York food outlets to respond to anything on my PC until such time as they have the technology to e-mail me a pizza.

      We DO need regionality and, perhaps also global access. Above all, we want two new top level domains ".scam" and ".spam" then the responsible people can be in the appropriate domains.

      An umlaut a day keeps the keyboard at bay

    19. Re:Oh Puh-leez by QuickFox · · Score: 1

      I'm sure you realize that would totally break DNS.

      The rules could be adapted so the last three characters form a TLD, regardless where the dots are. For example, in support.microsoft the TLD would be oft, in slashdot.org it would be org, in fastmail.fm it would be .fm. If heavily used endings such as com get too hard on the root servers, more characters could be included just for those endings -- queries for microsoft.com might go to a root server for ft.com.

      Just ignore the dots. It's certainly technically feasible.

      I like the suggestion in snookum's post! More freedom! More clarity! Better names! Mod it up!

      Give a man a fish, and you have fed him for just one day. Teach him how to fish, and he'll call you a miser.

      --
      Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
    20. Re:Oh Puh-leez by Mr-Pope · · Score: 1

      Not if I buy them first...

      muahahaha.

      --
      "The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it." - Brian Kernighan
    21. Re:Oh Puh-leez by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 2
      I mean, the distinction between .gov and .edu is clear, but .com or .biz?

      It's obvious what the difference is!

      .com is used to target people with X10 popups, while .biz is used to target people with... Oh! Nevermind...

      --
      That is all.
    22. Re:Oh Puh-leez by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No kidding. The original TLDs were fine. The sole reason we have more now is to fill registrar coffers.

      I can't believe that some Slashdotters are so dense as to believe that this was done for technical reasons.

    23. Re:Oh Puh-leez by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is absolutely correct. The .biz TLD is a monumental scam, but those of us who are responsible for corporate trademark assets HAVE NO CHOICE but pony up the registration fees ... and the trademark "protection racket" fees they charged BEFORE even opening up the registration process. I personally have had to put through tens of thousands of dollars' worth of redundant, pointless registrations that we have NO INTENTION of using, just to keep som e jizzball from encroaching on our core lines of business. These bastards should burn in the same lake of fire as the assholes who fill my email with offers to enlarge my breasts. I don't need it. We don't need it.

    24. Re:Oh Puh-leez by LinuxHam · · Score: 2

      Considering that probably 85-90% of the traffic is for .com, we effectively already have that world.

      The world root servers only have to return an IP of another DNS server that's responsible for performing the actual lookup of the final record.

      All the individual ".com" DNS servers only have to perform lookups into typically one to ten domains. Imagine a domain like yahoo.com. They get, what, 20 to 100 million hits a day? For most of those hits, the world root servers only need to return the 10 or so IP addresses of the DNS servers that know more about yahoo.com. You can't possibly say that the world root servers already do most of the work resolving every lookup into yahoo.com. View the html source of a Yahoo page and you'll be blown away by how many different yahoo servers come into play when rendering your page.

      Try managing your own DNS and you'll understand more how it works.

      --
      Intelligent Life on Earth
    25. Re:Oh Puh-leez by LinuxHam · · Score: 2

      How much worse is that than the load on the root .com servers?

      The world root servers only have to return an IP of another DNS server that's responsible for performing the actual lookup of the final record.

      All the individual ".com" DNS servers only have to perform lookups into typically one to ten domains. Imagine a domain like yahoo.com. They get, what, 20 to 100 million hits a day? For most of those hits, the world root servers only need to return the 10 or so IP addresses of the DNS servers that know more about yahoo.com. You can't possibly say that the world root servers already do most of the work resolving every lookup into yahoo.com. View the html source of a Yahoo page and you'll be blown away by how many different yahoo servers come into play when rendering your page.

      Try managing your own DNS and you'll understand more how it works.

      --
      Intelligent Life on Earth
  15. .biz troll by posmon · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    all you have to do is wait for this link to become live....BIZ TROLL

    --

    update comments set karma=-1, reason='offtopic' where sid=26315

    1. Re:.biz troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      get a fucking sense of humour you dour bastards!

  16. country domains by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Personnally, I think there shouldn't be .com, .net, etc. Everything should be at the country level, .us, .uk, etc.

  17. .biz is booming ... by ninewands · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As registrar for the new TLD Neulevel will undoubtedly make a TON of money as companies with significantly valuable trademarks rush to protect the value of their IP by registering all possible .your_TLD_here preceded by their trademark.

    Or am I just a cynic?

    1. Re:.biz is booming ... by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1


      > As registrar for the new TLD Neulevel will undoubtedly make a TON of money as companies with significantly valuable trademarks rush to protect the value of their IP by registering all possible .your_TLD_here preceded by their trademark.

      > Or am I just a cynic?

      Yeah, it sounds like we're missing out on the latest round of internet-as-get-rich-scheme. We should start our own TLD, call it maybe .scam or something, and do a little MAKE MONEY FASTing of our own.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    2. Re:.biz is booming ... by dvNull · · Score: 1

      No shit ...

      Didnt segfault have a new TLD .con story last week?

    3. Re:.biz is booming ... by O2n · · Score: 2, Funny

      rush to protect the value of their IP by registering all possible .your_TLD_here preceded by their trademark.

      Why bother? You can wait until someone else buys it, *if* they buy it, then call them cybersqatters etc. and get the domain.
      But probably they'll just rush as you said...

    4. Re:.biz is booming ... by bjtuna · · Score: 2

      I dare you to try. Filing a complaint through ICANN and the WIPO will set you back $2000 in processing fees alone... and thats just to get the WIPO to hear your case; you may not even get the domain back because the squatter can always say he registered it with good intentions.

    5. Re:.biz is booming ... by tmark · · Score: 2

      And if you challenge a cybersquatter by having a lawyer even so much as draft the necessary letters, you will incur a legal fees which almost certainly will cover registration fees for the next decade or two at minimum.

    6. Re:.biz is booming ... by O2n · · Score: 1

      Filing a complaint through ICANN and the WIPO will set you back $2000 [...]

      The big business is paying the lawyers anyway, and $2k is nothin' for'em...

      you may not even get the domain back because the squatter can always say he registered it with good intention

      They can say anything, but they must prove it. And it's expensive to defend yourself, too... $2k is a lot of money if it's going out of your own, personal pocket.

    7. Re:.biz is booming ... by O2n · · Score: 1

      And if you challenge a cybersquatter by having a lawyer even so much as draft the necessary letters, you will incur legal fees which almost certainly will cover registration fees for the next decade or two at minimum.

      Good point, but... the big companies are paying the lawyers anyway, and this "let's wait and see if anyone really registers it" attitude seems to me more consistent with big organisations' behaviour - where nobody really wants to make decisions which result in an immediate action.

  18. Domains? by TV-SET · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    ...what's the deal with the domains anywya? what's wrong with IP addresses?

    j/k

    --
    Leonid Mamtchenkov ...i don't need your civil war...
    1. Re:Domains? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As in Intellectual Property addresses? That's what domains names are.

  19. Damned Spammers.......... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hope they take their .biz to hell and fry there for all their 'Sale of the Century' and 'Come and get it before it's gone' land rush bull crap spam they bombarded me with for all those months. Besides, who thought of this anyway? instead of alot of other useful TLD's, why .biz?

    Blah

    1. Re:Damned Spammers.......... by PyroMosh · · Score: 5, Informative

      So true... I run a lot of sites among them, some adult sites and what we've all been waiting for is some kind of adult oriented TLD. .sex or .xxx or .whatever. I mean what does it take?

      - The sex industry wants an adult TLD
      - US Congress wants it
      - Keep our kids safe censor the net extreamists want it.

      I havn't heard anyone that DOESN'T want it! When ICANN had their little circle-jerk summit last year to discus something like 30 or so sudgested new TLDs, everyone was CERTAIN which ones they'd pick! And did they pick even one of the obviously most useful ones to giving ORDER to the net? No. It's times like this that I just want to go back to dialup BBSes! I wish that ICANN would handle domains the way that 800 numbers are handled. You CAN'T buy or sell them. If it's available, you can register it, but if you don't want it any more, you can't transfer it to another party, it just goes back into the pool. The only exception is if it's owned by a business and the business changes hands.

      If you asked me, that's the way to do it. It'll take care of the cybersquating problem right there.

    2. Re:Damned Spammers.......... by gavlil · · Score: 1

      some good points, i agree. The only exception is if it's owned by a business and the business changes hands. could you imagine company buyouts just to get the domain names :-)

      --

      Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You - ONLY HARDER!
    3. Re:Damned Spammers.......... by PyroMosh · · Score: 1

      The thought had crossed my mind. But if I remember correctly, isn't that what happened with Netscape / AOL? IIRC, when they bought out Netscape, AOL was mainly just interested in the Netscape.com portal site which at the time was something like the third or so most visited site on the internet. (After Microsoft.com and AOL.com, I think).

    4. Re:Damned Spammers.......... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is porn?

      That's the question that destroys .xxx.

    5. Re:Damned Spammers.......... by timster · · Score: 2

      Not really. It can be voluntary. Most sex sites would love to be in a .xxx domain.

      --
      I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
  20. Ho, hum! by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1


    OK, execs, get ready to pay off another round of squatters.

    How this going to get?

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  21. .com is just to prominent for this to work by Pointed+Stick · · Score: 3, Redundant

    I can't imagine this being very successful. .com has become synonymous with the entire internet. Heck, internet startup's are even called "dotcoms" more often then not. I'd be willing to make a sizeable bet that the .com on the back of your address is more important then whatever's in front. Think about all the nonsensical names on the internet. Yahoo! springs to mind, and for that matter what does "Amazon" have to do with selling books? What makes those names successful is the fact that they are easy to remember and easy to spell.

    One other thing .biz will have against it from the very start is the fact that there will always be a more marketable .com version for whatever name you can come up with. What we really need, for obvious reasons, is .xxx

    Cheers!

    -Pointed Stick

    1. Re:.com is just to prominent for this to work by Lars+T. · · Score: 2, Funny

      "No, Sir, Mr. Investor. We are not one of those worthless dotcoms, we are a dotbiz - see the difference?"

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

  22. .com mirror by ukryule · · Score: 1

    So every XYZ.com is now going to register XYZ.biz as well, making the whole thing pointless ... for example, even NeuLevel have exactly the same website as NeuLevel.

    Incidentally, who are the 160,000 companies who have already registered? I've tried IBM, hp, microsoft, sony, slashdot - none of them seem to be available ...

  23. .bizarre by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually,

    Goatboy and the Sleazoids have it straight.

    .biz just makes me think of bizarre -

    as in .hankypanky in the back of an SUV, or whatever.

    I can't imagine anyone but a porn shop dropping cash on this.

  24. Oh C'mon! by thesolo · · Score: 2, Informative

    November 7, 2001 marks a new historic event in domain name suffixes.

    Why? Did something important happen?? Because .biz is not important at all.

    In all seriousness, this is going to be the biggest top-level domain FLOP ever. All this amounts to is more spam for me to report to Spamcop. People need to realize that no other domain is going to have the same effect as .com on consumers, nor will it be as profitable.

  25. "Anyone going to buy a .biz" by mirko · · Score: 2, Informative

    They (ICANN ?) actually refused the opening of the .sex level which would have been a good way to just differentiate between pr0n and other websites...
    Now, I guess that sex.biz will be amongst the very first .biz domain names taken...

    --
    Trolling using another account since 2005.
    1. Re:"Anyone going to buy a .biz" by smaughster · · Score: 2

      Or just have all the pr0n servers replace www. with xxx.

      Maybe then legitimate sites like xxx.soton.ac.uk can return to the regular web.

      --
      I intend to live forever, so far so good.
    2. Re:"Anyone going to buy a .biz" by PyroMosh · · Score: 1

      I won't be. I run adult sites and also do web development for small to medium sized "bizes". And I've got to say... I wouldn't use a .biz domain for any of my adult sites and I certainly wouldn't recomend a .biz domain to any of my clients unless it was a VERY good fit like say, it's a site for a town't Chamber of Commerce? NewYork.biz, Seatle.biz, Boston.biz. Other than that, I can't think of any site where .biz might be anything but a last ditch option if .com, .net, and .org are taken.

    3. Re:"Anyone going to buy a .biz" by Judg3 · · Score: 2

      Speaking of sex.biz - as of 3:58am CST it's reported as not being taken by register.com. It'll say it is, but do a whois and is listed as "Not taken". Now how do you register a domain with a registar if all of the domains come back as "taken" even though they really arent?

      On a side note, since I was looking up sex.biz, register.com gave me these alternative, untaken domains.
      sleep-with.net
      bedded.org
      lie-with.net
      liewith.net
      adult-material.org
      sex-activity.org
      explicit-material.net
      nude-gif.org
      nudegif.org
      be-intimate.net
      beintimate.net
      nudejpg.org
      jazzing.org
      naked-gif.net
      effing.net
      jazzes.net
      gotosex.org
      sexconnect.org

      Gotta hand it to register.com for trying to make a few bucks on adult domains :)

      --
      Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
    4. Re:"Anyone going to buy a .biz" by Tull · · Score: 1

      There are good reasons for this refusal - check out this post which describes the situation well (but concerns .kids)

    5. Re:"Anyone going to buy a .biz" by Rogerborg · · Score: 3, Funny
      • Maybe then legitimate sites like xxx.soton.ac.uk can return to the regular web

      My company's gifted IS department blocked xxx.soton.ac.uk. I phoned them up to get it unblocked, and the techie on the end of the phone asked me repeatedly if this was a sex site. God damn. I mean God damn. How dumb do you have to be to not just type it into a browser and see, and how dumb would I have to be to phone IS, give my name, and as for a "sex site" to be unblocked.

      Er, sorry, this turned into more of an anti-IS rant. I had a point when I started, but it escapes me. ;-)

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    6. Re:"Anyone going to buy a .biz" by smaughster · · Score: 2

      Lol, I can feel your anguish, since soton is one of my favorite sites. Maybe that tech dude was afraid of goatse alike picture and didn't dare to check....:)

      --
      I intend to live forever, so far so good.
  26. sleezy? not interested? what if.. by peculiarmethod · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It could be almost anything and nay saying it to death will impose a self-f-blahblah.. Think of it- musicians grab their bands name as a biz, get a tax ID and a bank account.. put up a site for small time distribution. Sell CDs, give away MP3s. If enough bands (replace with alternative underdog in the corp. contractual world) use this method of distribution, it could _possibly_ be one of many small rifts needed to shift the power away from those that lobby for all of these dandy property and censorship laws. Take their money away through new channels, it may adapt into something wonderful. Don't kill the chicken before it's crackin man.

    Pego

    --
    ** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
  27. just what we need by jimflavis · · Score: 1

    another verisign... how the hell did neulevel get .us also?

  28. A nice mail I received from VeriSign... by sl8r · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Check it out:

    Dear .biz Requester:

    VeriSign understands the personal and professional significance of having a unique online presence. It's our pledge to keep you completely informed about the status of your .biz domain name applications.

    As you may be aware, the Superior Court of Los Angeles, CA, issued a preliminary injunction on October 11th temporarily preventing the activation of certain .biz domain names. Consequently, the .biz Registry, NeuLevel, has "frozen" any domain names where:

    1) Multiple Domain Name Applications (DNAs) were submitted for the same domain name by one individual.

    2) DNAs were submitted for the same domain name by multiple individuals.

    3) One or more Trademark Notification (TN) claims and at least one DNA were submitted for the same domain name.

    For any "frozen" domain names, the registrant has not been selected and NeuLevel has not yet announced when the random selection of registrants will begin. In addition, NeuLevel has not stated how the frozen names will or will not appear in the .biz WHOis database. The .biz domain names you requested that have been "frozen" are listed at the end of this email.

    VeriSign is committed to giving you everything you need for success on the Web. We'll post any updates we receive from NeuLevel at http://newdomains.networksolutions.com. If you have any specific questions or concerns about NeuLevel's domain "freezing" process, please visit www.neulevel.com or e-mail them at support@neulevel.biz


    For those wondering what domain I registered: It's my last name. Isn't it so that family names win over trademarks in a domain name dispute?

    Here's to hoping it is...

    1. Re:A nice mail I received from VeriSign... by PyroMosh · · Score: 1
      That's downright disturbing... Especially the part about disputes being settled by "random selection" and the part about people registering multiple domains having them frozen.

      But am I to understand that you ordered yourlastname.biz ?
      That doesn't seem a bit... not-quite-right to you?

    2. Re:A nice mail I received from VeriSign... by Alsee · · Score: 1

      Isn't it so that family names win over trademarks in a domain name dispute?

      If I understand it correctly, it's not that names win over trademarks, but that they don't lose to them. This means who ever grabs the domain first wins. In this case it looks like a tie, and probably random determination.

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    3. Re:A nice mail I received from VeriSign... by ZeroConcept · · Score: 1

      Is your lastname Dell?

    4. Re:A nice mail I received from VeriSign... by kindbud · · Score: 2

      Isn't it so that family names win over trademarks in a domain name dispute?

      Not when they established .name TLD for just your application. .BIZ is not for names, .name is for names.

      --
      Edith Keeler Must Die
    5. Re:A nice mail I received from VeriSign... by Suppafly · · Score: 1

      .name is not an established tld..

  29. I know at least one market for .biz by ShaunC · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...fuckedcompany.com. fucked.biz would be so much easier to type! And so much more appropriate...

    Shaun

    --
    Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
  30. Root servers for the TLD? by George+Walker+Bush · · Score: 0

    What are the root servers for the .biz domain? Are they using the same root servers as the existing gTLDs like .com, .net., .org, .edu, or their own?

    --
    George W. Bush
    President, United States of America
  31. Don't joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    oik all you ass suckers out there all you faygots all you chimps... ok all you chuckers ok all you monusy ok ? you fucvign here me?

  32. Anglo bias by GnulixRulz · · Score: 1
    As all the recent additions to the top level domains have been rather Anglocentric, I wonder if .biz (or any other new TLD) is obscene, vulgar or sex related in other languages on the planet.

    If so, the porn industry there will probably keep the new TLDs commercially viable, cause I don't see a good future for them otherwise.

    1. Re:Anglo bias by Xandis · · Score: 1

      Actually, something like .info is not Anglo-specific per se since the Romance languages (Spanish and Italian, for sure) use INFO --- informazione, informacion...or something similar.

      Biz though is just plain stupid and sounds like something some marketing person came up with thinking that it would be hip-and-cool. Dot Ass would have been better.

  33. www.microsoft.biz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The web address you entered could not be found

    This web site may be avaliable for registration

    Hmmm...

    1. Re:www.microsoft.biz by halfstar · · Score: 2, Interesting

      hmm... well i did actually register this through joker.com just to see what would happen.
      heh

      fun and chaos

  34. Microsoft.biz by powerlinekid · · Score: 1

    In recent news it was reported that Microsoft will be shifting all their web belongings to the new domain Microsoft.biz, being that thats all they do anyway and would be more appropriate than Microsoft.net.

    --

    can't sleep slashdot will eat me
  35. Re:All domains resolve! To Spammers! by hsquared · · Score: 0

    And it's probably the same guys that kept spamming me with announcements for their new TLD for months now.

    I DON'T WANT TO BUY A BIZ DOMAIN!

    May they got it now...

  36. Congratulations! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    mpaa.biz is available! $35.00/year [Register]

    I missed hotmail.biz by about 30 seconds, netsol said it was open, by the time they asked me for CC info it was gone, bah there go my plans to make millions from microsquatting!

  37. Linux.biz, oxymoron? by powerlinekid · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I wonder what the future owners of linux.biz will do with the site? I know linus won't claim it because he couldn't care less, but this could be kind of interesting in that nobody else has figured out how to run a business out of linux. (It may not be claimed yet but you know some poor sap who thinks hes gonna get rich is going to... haha... sucker)

    --

    can't sleep slashdot will eat me
  38. .biz = .com by RuntimeError · · Score: 1
    I really don't see the point of having .biz. All the companies that own the thiscompany.com domain will naturally inherit the .biz domain because of the various domain name registration laws.

    The .biz is good for those making money out of domain registration. As for the companies, they would get two domains for the price of two. I expect most companies to simply forward all requests to their .biz to .com.

    At any rate this whole top level domain scheme is fraught with inconstancies. Why is it that everyone except the Americans are happy to use there national TLD ? And most of the .net websites do not belong to service providers or other network related companies. There are very .org sites that can actually be called organisations. We all know about .com.

    As one poster suggested earlier, .sex would probably have been a grand idea. It would have made life a lot easier for the net nannies. Also, they should've made it illegal for any p0rn site to register under any other TLD.

    .info names are going to appear soon. I wonder who is going to use the .info TLD. I would hardly expect it to be by companies in the domain (pardon my pun) of information provision.

    This is just another way for somepeople to make money.

    Then again if you want to use really wicked TLDs you can always use an alternative DNS heirarchy like ORSC

    1. Re:.biz = .com by FrankBough · · Score: 1

      This is so true. So many .net are registered by the same company as .com.

      What is really needed is more functional TLDs. I like the idea of the .aero one which is coming along (although whether the aviation industry will survive is another matter). Tuvalu are making a reasonable amount of cash our of selling the .tv domain (like this british TV channel).
      There seems to be no point in expanding the range
      of general TLDs because it will just be a race for the big companies to snatch them up again.

      So to go with .aero we should have .auto, .food, .sex, .drugs, .music, .law and some others, reserve them for truly international organisations and put some responsible people in charge of policing them. For everything else, use the national tlds.

    2. Re:.biz = .com by Xandis · · Score: 1

      I agree that more policing would be nice with new TLDs.

      I like the idea of having a set of general (.info. .com, .org for example) TLDs that are not at all regulated -- like we have now -- and then a series of very functional types that are highly regulated (private sector registration though).

      Non-profit regulators would be nice.

  39. I've been seeing .biz for a long, long time! by asackett · · Score: 5, Informative
    Open Root Server Confederation has been showing the first, original, REAL .biz for a long time now. I will never see any of Neulevel's colliders.

    I Can Abandon ICANN, So Can You. Use the name servers of the Open Root Server Confederation.

    --

    Warning: This signature may offend some viewers.

    1. Re:I've been seeing .biz for a long, long time! by julesh · · Score: 1

      Don't you think that this is going to cause you problems? I mean, all sorts of people are now going to be registering domains that you can't see. Links are going to spring up all over the web (there's already been one from slashdot!) that you can't follow because of your choice of a non-standard root server; won't you find this inconvenient?

    2. Re:I've been seeing .biz for a long, long time! by Sloppy · · Score: 2

      I use OpenNIC's root servers, which also recognize Pacific Root's earlier claim to .biz, so I have the same "problem."

      Maybe I will find it inconvenient, but this problem was created by ICANN's arrogance and defyance of the will of the people. It's their problem, not mine. You can turn it around too: this will be inconvenient for people who are duped into buying .biz domains, because some people will not be able to reach them. Maybe the amount of business they lose won't be enough to matter. Or maybe they will decide it does matter, and sue their registrars for fraud. Whatever; it's their problem.

      I think the Right Thing to do is to keep installing DNS servers that use alternate roots, and go ahead and balkanize .biz so that it's useless to everyone. Scorched earth. Because if ICANN doesn't suffer political damage as a consequence of their defiant act, then they will just repeat such acts. Maybe next time, ICANN will collide with .geek or .parody. It's all about power and their insistence that There Can Be Only One.

      --
      As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    3. Re:I've been seeing .biz for a long, long time! by Chops · · Score: 2

      You should also check out OpenNIC if you're interested in giving ICANN the finger... they're trying to stitch together the (often colliding) namespaces proposed by various alternative-root organizations into a single, sane, democratically-governed namespace. I haven't heard anything from them in a while, though.

  40. .biz just makes me think of "showbiz" by uberchicken · · Score: 1

    ...hardly a good basis for "serious" business. I wonder if it will shake off this stigma.

  41. From an Aussie netadmin by laptop006 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I support Elz, but do you have ANY idea of how F***KED the Australian registry are? They are hell to deal with, and unforunatly Elz just makes it worse, if we had a competent resitrar then Elz's rules would be great. However the Australian government has chosen F**ked resistry over reasnoble rules and forcebly removed Elz's control over the .au

    --
    /* FUCK - The F-word is here so that you can grep for it */
    1. Re:From an Aussie netadmin by NonSequor · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Your sig should be "/* Fuck. The f-word is here so you can grep for it :-) */". At least, that's one of the many lines of output that I get for the command "grep -ir fuck /usr/src/linux".

      --
      My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
  42. Why not a .free or .all domains for free? by GdoL · · Score: 1

    I want to have a free domain for my personal use, research or non-profit project. Why not create a .free or .all? Any ideas for a domain like this one?

    --

    ------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
    1. Re:Why not a .free or .all domains for free? by jdludlow · · Score: 1

      It might be free to you, but someone will have to pay for it. Probably me through higher taxes. No thanks.

    2. Re:Why not a .free or .all domains for free? by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 1

      I'm giving away free domains. Can't imagine how it would raise your taxes though.

    3. Re:Why not a .free or .all domains for free? by GdoL · · Score: 1

      Do you pay for having your name? Or picking a name for a book? So why have to pay for choosing a name for a site?

      --

      ------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
    4. Re:Why not a .free or .all domains for free? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually I seem to remember that .us domains were registered, for free, by volunteer regional co-ordinators for quite some time. Of course you had to do the hosting yourself, but I liked it that way. But I guess that era is over with now...

  43. Not only .biz resolves by jankol · · Score: 1, Informative

    They aren't alone on this - lookup any .nu domain and it will lead you to 212.181.91.6 / 64.55.105.9 and tell you that "The domain name, .nu, is for sale!".

    That sort of thing is just plain annoying.

  44. Personally... by dimator · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm waiting for .jiz for all the porn sites I frequent.

    --
    python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
    1. Re:Personally... by WWWWolf · · Score: 1
      I'm waiting for .jiz for all the porn sites I frequent.

      No, Sun will grab that for their Java-based Domain Name Information Zervices business, showing that it beats .biz domains in speed any day due to Just In Time Domain Resolution! Since that wasn't a success (everyone can only remember the slowness of .jiz 1.0, and refuse to believe .jiz 1.3 is actually pretty good), some pr0n folks start using a derivative (called .jsiz), creating more and more popup windows...

    2. Re:Personally... by sunhou · · Score: 1

      I'm waiting for .jiz for all the porn sites I frequent.

      Well, for now, someone could register jiz.biz, although would you really want your name as part of the registration records for that domain?

    3. Re:Personally... by jimbolaya · · Score: 1

      'Twould go along nicely with .cum and .orgy.

      --

      There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.

    4. Re:Personally... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sex is nothing to be ashamed of you prude.

    5. Re:Personally... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      .cum would be better.

    6. Re:Personally... by sunhou · · Score: 1

      Sex is nothing to be ashamed of you prude.

      Hey, I'm not at all ashamed of sex, just wouldn't want my name on jiz.biz. I don't think there's anything wrong with online commerce, either, but I also don't want a .biz address. Like many other people, I don't see the point in .biz, think it sounds unprofessional, will get people confused when they can't remember if an address is.com or .biz, and think it's probably a ploy just to get more money from people with .com addresses who will also register the .biz version.

  45. does this even make sence?? by spinwards · · Score: 1

    "The sophistication of business web sites just got dialed up a few hundred notches. .BIZ, the newest domain on the web, utilizes robust technologies that not only make your address for business more secure, but more flexible to your ever-changing needs.

    .BIZ is here. Welcome to your new home.

    THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB

    Security--.BIZ has it.
    Ever notice that your security guards use German Shepherds instead of Chihuahuas?

    The Right Address--.BIZ has it.
    Why isn't your business headquartered in Timbuktu?

    Technology--.BIZ has it
    Ever notice how your accounting department gave up using the abacus years ago?

    .BIZ--a new name space--a new opportunity. "

    thats straight from neulevel's site. is it just me (or maybe just me at 3am) or is this all nonsence?

    i wonder if neulevel even takes themselves seriously.

    read the "why .biz" section of the site. how can they promise this: "- Secure your peace of mind; your .BIZ name won't be hijacked and changes can't be made to your website without your approval." i'm sure this is what execs want to hear, but i think that even they can see that the TLD has nothing to do with how secure their web servers are.

    ".BIZ is the first and only global top-level domain (gTLD) 'built for business.'" havn't they ever heard of .com

    this whole thing just makes me sick. sort of like the first time i saw those "sponsored links" filling up the first screenfull of my altavista searches.

    .biz -- they can keep it. i'm just waiting for the next big revolution, maybe i'll be one of the ones who remembered when it all began (coarse hashing out VM things 50 years from now'll probubly be fun:) AC was right dammit!)

    time to go back to the cave, and try to get some sleep before chem tomarrow.

    -Caleb Moore

    1. Re:does this even make sence?? by vidarlo · · Score: 1

      Well. Certanily Microsoft has NOT registered their name (microsoft.biz).

  46. Useful? by zerosignal · · Score: 1

    Since Neulevel will have access to the full list of registered domains, they could use this to suggest close matching domain names when someone makes a typo. Certainly more friendly than a 'DNS Error' message.

    1. Re:Useful? by -Surak- · · Score: 1

      Why would they do that when they can sell the typos to the owners of the original domain or their competitors?

  47. oh great new world.. by letoram · · Score: 1

    how about ogg.vor.biz?

  48. Amazon and books (OT) by MosesJones · · Score: 2


    Well the Amazon Rain Forest had a lot of trees, Amazon.com sell a lot of books which means there are now less trees in the Amazon Rain Forest so I guess what they are saying is

    "We transfer the Rain Forests to your bookshelf - Amazon because bio-diversity should be read and not seen"

    :)

    --
    An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
  49. www.ConcreteShoes.biz by Abnornymous+Howard · · Score: 1

    I like the sound of it. You gotta admit that .biz doesn't sound like a legitimate bussiness.

    1. Re:www.ConcreteShoes.biz by macrophage · · Score: 1

      You just know that someone will make you an offer you can't refuse...

  50. .END for people who don't exist by MosesJones · · Score: 3, Funny


    Yes thats right, aiming at the secret services and terrorist organisations around the world, the TLD for them its...

    .end

    Yes the new "Emperors new Domain" domain has all of the advantages of traditional domain names and so much less.

    No DNS... yes thats right register your .end and noone will be able to find the site. This provides the secrecy required by todays spy and terrorist rings.

    No connection, yes this is the TLD for those organisations that don't connect to the internet. Got a closed loop controlling your nuclear deterent ? No worries now you can hang out with those cool (but sadly unemployed) .com guys with you head held high with your .end address, safe in the knowledge that your so cool because they can't find it.

    "I love the fact that I can't be found" - Mr Bin Ladle

    "Not interested, we like our systems easy to hack" - Mr Cyril Ian Arthur

    "My business was a total flop, it really is impossibly to find" - Mr Peter Orn head of sex.end

    --
    An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
  51. Carpet bombed by .biz spammers by bani · · Score: 1, Redundant

    For the past several weeks I have been mercilessly carpet bombed by spammers about .biz domains...

    As a result, it will be a cold day in hell if I EVER buy a fucking .biz domain from those registrars...

    1. Re:Carpet bombed by .biz spammers by hylo · · Score: 1

      I work for the registration company http://www.budgetregister.com/ and we set up most everything for .biz yesterday. Domains started appearing in our database some time in the late morning from NeuLevel. We got a list of people that had successfully preregistered the .biz and zero info on anyone else.

      We did a carpet bomb email to all the administrative contacts for domains registered with us last night to announce this launch. I would say about %20 of the email contacts listed in the whois are undeliverable addresses. These are customers that are possibly too scared of someone using the data in the whois or possibly they are doing something sneaky with their domain?

      What I learned from this is? %20 of our customers will never know their domain is going to expire, never received their billing receipt, and have no means of contact if something were to come into dispute.

      .biz and .info is only going to make this harder to keep up with for budgetregister and any other domain registration company. The people that send most of the spam on the net seem to have this figured out a while ago. Not only are these people harder to find then ever but the whois is also now showing the ?Sponsoring Reseller; for Technical Support with respect to this domain contact? which is the company you register your domain with such as network solutions or us. Now if someone registers a domain with us with a fraudulent address, we have the only contact on the whois output that wont bounce.

      Warming up my delete key.

    2. Re:Carpet bombed by .biz spammers by bani · · Score: 2

      Seriously, you should have a policy where you revoke domains which have bouncing contact emails for more than, say, 30 days.

      Of course if networksolutions did this, 75% of their domains would get deleted...

  52. So now i can create new Filters against .biz SPAM. by Quazion · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Lets say all SPAM from non .biz domains is illegal and its legal from the .biz domain, meaning i would only need to filter .biz mail out.

    When does life get so simpel ?

    Quazion

  53. It's like "biz-dev"... by bartwol · · Score: 1

    ...those dot-com guys who were able to pull off inter-bizness transaction worth MILLIONS (okay, on paper). Remember: a good bizness begins with a good name (reference: "Dot-com Bizness Guide", page 1).

    <bart

  54. Now let me get this straight... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    My goal is to become a mediocre academic, and then a mediocre worker, without a shred of joy or enthusiasm. Until one day I can't stand it anymore, at which point I'll promptly go home and watch more television.

    And when the television breaks down I'll watch all my wasted opportunities.

    So you and all the rest of the Slashdot crowd can just fuck off. I don't care about anything anymore.

  55. No point by Asmodean · · Score: 1

    There is absolutely no point to .biz. Can you really get away with having microsoft.biz, or walmart.biz? no, you will be forced to give your domain to those companies, who already have .com.

    There should only be one domain per company.

    .sex and some type of personal homepage domain would be much more usefull. bobshomepage should not be a .com if it's not a bussiness. maybe .per or .add.

    --
    It's a good thing the world sucks or we'd all fall off.
  56. Re: Anyone going to buy a .biz domain? by eff · · Score: 1

    well, at least someone bought www.vasoftware.biz

  57. partially broke links by uhmmmm · · Score: 1

    When trying to go to .biz domain with links (IMHO the best text-only webbrowser), you have to prefix it with "http://" or it will think you're trying to access a local file

    1. Re:partially broke links by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that's why normal people use REAL web browsers:

      www.microsoft.com/ie
      www.netscape.com
      www.opera.com

      loser.

  58. .biz + .sex = .jiz? by mikecheng · · Score: 1

    no further comment.

    --
    Cool, but useless.
  59. same internet by Fuzzums · · Score: 1

    is it me or are the pages just the same as the .com pages? ;)

    --
    Privacy is terrorism.
  60. The root of the problem by dirtyhippie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The root of the problem is the idea that one level of hierarchization is enough to solve everything down to the institution level. It's the same problem as unix, were you have about 10,000 files in /bin /usr/bin and other choice locales in the namespace.

    I guess people just have trouble thinking in two dimensions. But honest, people, its easier...
    What I'd like to see is at least a two level hierarchy, so you have institutions organized in to logical groups:
    www.ford.cars
    www.gm.cars
    www.dell.comp
    www.gateway.comp
    www.yahoo.portal
    www.go.portal
    www.google.search
    www.lycos.search
    etc. Makes a lot more sense to me, but the trouble is you have a lot more administrative overhead. It also solves the multiple companies with the same name problem.

    DH

    1. Re:The root of the problem by dirtyhippie · · Score: 1

      Oops, clarification is in order... I meant to append .biz to the end of each of those... Although come to think of it, maybe it would be better without it. The point was instead of having 3 top level domains and 1000000 2nd level domains, it'd be better to have sqrt(3000000) top levels, and sqrt(3000000) or so under each of them.

    2. Re:The root of the problem by Rogerborg · · Score: 2

      Nice idea, but you'd forcibly have to remove .com (and maybe even .org) to make it work equitably, other wise apple.comp and apple.music would still fight over apple.com. So, ideas for where we find the money to compensate businesses who have just re-painted their fleet of trucks and paid for a advertising campaign based on their .com name?

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    3. Re:The root of the problem by Skater · · Score: 1

      I like your idea in general, but I have some questions.

      GM makes much more than cars. For example, they also make railroad locomotives. Would they have to have a second domain like www.gm.railroad for that division? Obviously there are a lot of other companies with a similar dilemma.

      Your scheme would make more sense with the example I raised because (in theory) you'd go directly to the area in which you were interested.

      You didn't mention country codes--would they be removed entirely? Or would there be a www.gm.cars.uk? (Assuming GMs are sold in the UK, which I don't know for certain.) That could be a nightmare for a large company like GM, because they'd have thousands of domains to maintain.

      RJ

  61. Use for french speaking people by sconest · · Score: 2, Informative

    biz is the same, phonetically speaking, as "bise" meaning kiss.

    --
    Guvf vf abg n EBG zrffntr
  62. I can't wait for... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't wait for .xxx to come out for pr0n sites. :)

    -Vic

  63. I always thought it was a joke..... by until(0) · · Score: 1

    Not really, but it's just SOOO rediculous...

    --
    -da5id
  64. why .biz when we have .com by weinford · · Score: 1

    I still don't see the need for .biz, isn't .com for commercial stuff on the net?

    --

    This sig is stolen from someone who had a much better idea than I had.
  65. .biz and .info? Not me! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The .info is a domain-name hoax. Ofcourse, most domain names today are intended for webpage hosting only. And which webpage does not contain info? This is just another jippo to make people buy more domain names.

    I hope the .biz domain name will become what .com was inteded for; that is for commercial use. But since .com has completely lost its meaning, I hope .biz will take over that role.

    %

  66. .biz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't like the sound of it, but I bid on one solely because all of the cool .com and .nets were taken. Even if it sucks, the web's running out of TLDs.

  67. the important question... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    who will be the first to register goatse.biz? Maybe they can make it into a nice legit business.

  68. A suggestion: dot-� by wowbagger · · Score: 4, Funny

    How about the following for TLD's:

    .© - for example, riaa.©, mpaa.©
    .® - for all the corporations to have product domains (kleenex.®, q-tip.®)
    .$ - for all the make-money-quick spammers (they seem to be largly US, but if needed, we can localize them with .£ et. al. )

    Come on fellow /.'s, let's pool our money and set this up!

    1. Re:A suggestion: dot-� by Merk · · Score: 1

      Good gawd! Just what I need, another 2 keys on my keyboard, cuz you know that most people would never ever be able to enter a ® symbol any other way.

  69. CEO of Neulevel on news by LordKronos · · Score: 1

    It was kinda funny. Yesterday morning the CEO (I thinks that was his position) of NeuLevel was on the Fox 2 news in Detroit talking about the .biz domains. He was so full of crap, talking about how much .biz can do for companies because it uses new technologies and can "allow business to perform extremely complex, secure transactions", as if its some new TCPIP or encryption protocol. I was laughing at the guy.

    Then one of the news anchors asked him how much it would cost to set up a .biz domain, and he all but avoided the subject, saying a bunch of bs and concluding with...contact one of our representatives and they will help you. It was like he was afraid to say.

    But the funniest thing was half the time the guy was speaking, it was like he didnt know what to say, as if he didnt even believe in what they were doing. He kept pausing, as if he was thinking "we'll, .biz doesnt really do much for you, but I need to plug it so I can make millions providing a service no one needs. So...what can I make up."

    1. Re:CEO of Neulevel on news by jesseraf · · Score: 1

      From the website: WHY .BIZ IS BETTER: THE BENEFITS OF .BIZ Security - Changing the details of your .BIZ address requires enhanced validation before modifications take effect. - Secure your peace of mind; your .BIZ name won't be hijacked and changes can't be made to your website without your approval.
      Not exactly novel.

  70. Sounds sleazy indeed. by IPFreely · · Score: 2
    I've always divided businesses into two categories: Those who promote their products, and those who promote their name.

    Those that promote their product usually have a product worth promoting, support it well and place the value of the business on that product and support.

    Those that promote their name are usually the kind that are just out to get money anyway they can, including all of the practices that we've all grown to know and hate here on Slashdot; strong IP manipulation, questionable anti-competative practices and legislative and judicial buyouts.

    .BIZ sounds like the kind of name the second type of business would like.

    --
    There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
    1. Re:Sounds sleazy indeed. by Clovert+Agent · · Score: 1
      Those that promote their name are usually the kind that are just out to get money anyway they can

      Er. What? There are these things called "marketing" and "branding" that you may have heard of? Promoting a name is fairly fundamental to business.

      Establishing a strong brand is one step, associating it with a web presence is the next. Logical, no?

      However, this is why I think the whole TLD business is such pointless crap. I can't go and register ibm.info, for obvious reasons, nor should I be able to. Creating new namespaces just creates redundancy that companies are forced to pay to fill. A license to print virtual money, if you will.

      In turn, this is why regional TLDs make sense, for all the Internet is global. Foo Inc in the US and Foo Ltd in the UK may be entirely separate institutions with no conflict of trademark, and it's only sensible to have namespaces that accommodate this.

    2. Re:Sounds sleazy indeed. by dh5fbr · · Score: 1

      Well, what about making them bid for it and a bid may not only include money, but also the task of defending you against the other law suits.
      And maybe at least you will get a subdomain space of .show.biz and a few nice email adresses...

      "What would you do if you know you would not fail"

  71. Show.BIZ Troubles by SL33Z3 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A while ago, I had thought up a domain called "show.com" for a reason I'm not quite ready to release just yet. It was obviously taken. When register.com said I could pre-register show.biz, I was happy as hell. I registered it not even thinking about the fact that I would now own a very popular and much wanted domain for entertainment purposes (showbiz!) It would even appear that there is a copyright on the name "show.biz" for the purposes of entertainment. I have no intentions of using this for entertainment purposes at all, but I already have about 6 Intellectual Property claims against me for the domain. I imagine if I am actually awarded the domain when it is all said and done, I will have lawsuits to contend with.

    Anyone got some advice?

    Thanks.

    Tobin

    --
    SL33ZE - Artificial Intelligence is No Match For Natural Stupidity -
    1. Re:Show.BIZ Troubles by kindbud · · Score: 2

      Bring money, guns and lawyers.

      Slow Down Cowboy!
      Slashdot requires you to wait 20 seconds between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.

      It's been 19 seconds since you hit 'reply'!

      If you this error seems to be incorrect, please provide the following in your report to SourceForge.net:

      Browser type
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      * Please choose 'formkeys' for the category!
      Thank you.

      --
      Edith Keeler Must Die
  72. DNA? by jdavidb · · Score: 1

    Is there some reason there absolutely has to be an acronym for "domain name application"? (Deliberately not capitalized here.) I mean, couldn't they just call them "applications," and when they need to disambiguate, "domain name applications"?



    Did these folks ever have to take a biology class in high school or college?

  73. DNS is not ready for gajillion TLDs by Vortran · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Is it just me, or is the commercial greed machine putting the cart before the horse, here? DNS was never meant to support a plethora of TLDs. The push for 20, 30.. or 300 new TLDs will require a directory service (which I'm sure M$ will be MORE than happy to provide).

    Don't you think we should hold off on creating new TLDs until AFTER we've created an Internet Directory System (or something) to replace DNS?

    And I should also mention that if you are looking for someone's web site, you really only have a few choices today. What is National Semiconductor's main web site URL? Anyone care to guess? How many guesses will it take if we have 30 more TLDs?

    Needless to say, I really think adding TLDs is not a good idea for DNS.

    Vortran out

    --
    Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
  74. MOD WAY UP!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now that's funny...

  75. Re:sleezy? not interested? what if.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Think of it-musicians grab their bands name as a biz, get a tax ID and a bank account.. put up a site for small time distribution

    Oh wait...we said the same thing about .com. If it didn't happen with .com, .net, .org, .uk [180 other tlds omitted] why should things be any different with .biz?

  76. Neulevel.biz by CaptainSuperBoy · · Score: 2

    Neulevel.biz has actually resolved for a few months now. Today, all the other .biz domains went live..

  77. damned if you do, damned if you don't... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As of 8:51AM EST 11/08/2001, microsoft.biz is still available for registration! Go and squat so that their lawyers will crush you, and you'll end up owing THEM money!

    That aside, if you get a '.biz' domain, consumers will think you weren't savvy enough to get its '.com' counterpart, and won't respect you. But if you *do* get the '.com' domain, consumers will probably think you paid a ludicrous price for it, and still won't give you any respect.

    Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
    -60623

  78. I've got mine! by ImaLamer · · Score: 1

    Thank god, no one took it!

    www.jiz.biz

    [just kiddin']

  79. at least you can register something like by llamalicious · · Score: 1

    itsnoneofyour.biz

  80. Nobody who wants to profit does .biz-ness anyway! by Kamel+Jockey · · Score: 1

    Agreed... this new domain is simply going to create the same stampede/disputes we have already with the .com, .net, .org, etc. suffices. Although I suppose that it can't cost that much for a company to buy its .biz domain so that it simply points to their existing site.

    But my main disagreement with this .biz domain is that it sounds so immature. Given that ICANN itself is not a business, it lacks the perspective needed to make the right choices in choosing the names for these TLDs. .biz sounds like something a little kid might say. I'd rather they have gone with something far more professional, such as .inc or .ltd or the like.

    --
    In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
  81. Why not... by alumshubby · · Score: 2

    .inc, .llc, .ltd, .gmbh (if they allow more than three bytes), .sa, and so on?

    And maybe .npo for non-profit organizations.

    --
    "How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
    1. Re:Why not... by horza · · Score: 2

      inc, .llc, .ltd, .gmbh (if they allow more than three bytes), .sa, and so on?

      Because your average punter knows a brand by their common name, eg Walmart or Ford, and doesn't necessarily know whether the company is a PLC or LTD.

      .us makes sense. Why is the USA, the most prominent country on the net, the only one not to have a country tld? (rhetorical question) I'd plump for .art for artists (music, painters, etc), and .mag for magazines or news sources.

      And maybe .npo for non-profit organizations.

      .org already covers this category.

      Phillip.

    2. Re:Why not... by drsquare · · Score: 1

      .inc, .llc, .ltd,

      What's wrong with .com?

      And maybe .npo for non-profit organizations.

      What ever happened to .org?

  82. Couldn't resist... by xtermz · · Score: 1

    Anyone going to buy a .biz domain?

    i aint telling you...
    ...thats none of your .biz.....

    --


    I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
  83. .biz good for business? by mybecq · · Score: 1
    In many ways, the Internet today is like the wild, wild west. It was never designed for commercial use," said Douglas B. Armentrout, CEO of NeuLevel. ".BIZ is where business will be conducted in the future because it has what the business community needs: superior technology, better security and a platform to facilitate the business transactions of the future. This isn't just the future of the Internet; this is the future of business."
    • Uh-huh. So a new .TLD will:
    • increase security
    • provide superior technology
    • facilitate business transactions
    Way to go DNS!
  84. It could be worse. by DarklordJonnyDigital · · Score: 1
    At least some businesses will use the .biz domains. Who's honestly gonna want to buy a .name?

    I'm currently the proud owner of JonnyDigital.com - it's named so because I go by the nick of JonnyDigital online, and so many individuals have registered the dot-com domain for a personal homepage that it no longer stands for 'commercial organisation'.

    There's no way I'd buy jonnydigital.name, though. For one, JonnyDigital isn't my name - it's my online nick. For two, there are a bunch of sites out there that are neither for a person or an organisation... what are they supposed to use?

    The domain name system kinda sucks... still, at least .net domains are only a dollar apiece, if the seventy spam per week my Hotmail address gets are anything to go by... ;)

  85. gnu.biz? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    now that's funny. how about *.gnu though?

    Oh God, We've been phracked. serves us right i guess, what with all of our whining.

  86. Re:sleezy? not interested? what if.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And why can this not happen with .com .. Seems to me we already have sites that do this, eg. MP3.com. Splitting mp3.com up into {infinity}.biz would in fact make things MORE difficult for indie bands to make a buck - MP3.com is very browsable -- google is not.

  87. What happened to the illegal lottery suggestion? by 5150 · · Score: 1

    Did anyone actually have a go at legal action for Neulevel operating an illegal lottery?

    BTW my registrar confirmed that domains under dispute will neither show as available or taken under WHOIS. This seems bloody stupid as there is no way to know whats going on.

    As for the IP claims against show.biz how the hell can you prove thats a trademark!!!!!

    The whole TLD thing is a waste of time while we let the companies register their name across all the TLD's - whats the point!

    --
    ....but all they found there was a man who repeatedly said that nothing was true, but was later found to be lying.
  88. /. bug by Sloppy · · Score: 1

    Weird; Slashdot screwed up my post. I did close the Pacific Root link correctly, and I even used preview. But I posted from the Preview screen instead of backing up. I suspect there's a bug in preview...

    --
    As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
  89. Thats what .info is for by autopr0n · · Score: 0

    If you look at the specs for .info they read "you may register a .info domain for any purpose whatsoever." So, what you're asking for already exists.

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
  90. DNS security by autopr0n · · Score: 1, Insightful

    read the "why .biz" section of the site. how can they promise this: "- Secure your peace of mind; your .BIZ name won't be hijacked and changes can't be made to your website without your approval." i'm sure this is what execs want to hear, but i think that even they can see that the TLD has nothing to do with how secure their web servers are.

    Haven't you ever heard of 'domain hijacking'? It isn't when someone breaks into your computers and changes your website, but rather when someone issues a fraudulent domain transfer, giving them control of your domain name.

    There was a real problem with this with NSI, and sometimes people lost their domain names for good. Assembly, Neulevel's statements indicate that they have got some system in place to prevent this from occurring with .biz names.

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
  91. That would give order to the *WEB* not the *NET* by autopr0n · · Score: 0

    Increasingly, the domain name system has been about the web, and labeling content. But that's not what it's supposed to be for. Aside from being impossible to police, setting policy based on website content is absurd. What about IRC? FTP? Hell, what about email Are all of those things going to be continuously monitored to make sure everyone is in 'compliance' with whatever restrictions you have on the system?

    The web is not the same thing as the internet. And the domain name system should not be used to try to impose 'order' on it.

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
  92. dot-bomb to dot-biz, the logic is clear! by Infonaut · · Score: 2
    I predict that soon all of the failing dot-coms that are still alive will convert their business names to .biz. Heck, we may even get some of the old .coms resurrected as .bizes.

    We can go through the entire cycle all over again. The Industry Standard will.. oh, wait.. uhh.. "Smart Company" will tout the virtues of new and innovative .biz companies. Headlines on Forbes will scream: "Making Sense of the Dot-Biz Boom," while the Economist will caution against investment bubbles.

    The fearless among us will leave our cushy, well-paid jobs at established companies (wait, there aren't many cushy jobs left, are there?), to try our luck on the merry-go-wheel of the Dot-Biz economy.

    After a while, Microsoft will gobble up the first few big Dot-Biz companies. The rest will go through all their funding with no profits to show for it. Most will tank. Angry investors will file lawsuits, alleging that they were misled by exorbitant claims of dot.biz companies.

    A few survivors will limp along, and a few will survive. Eventually, someone will come up with the idea of a new top-level domain...

    .hyp, anyone?

    --
    Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
  93. brain dead tld's by overunderunderdone · · Score: 1

    A lot of people have made comments similar comments but at the risk of being modded down -1 Redundant I just have to rant.

    I haven't been following the convoluted politics of adding new tld's but the end result seems just spectacularly stupid. There is definitely a need for change but the new domains don't seem like they are going to help much at all. They are too generic which was fine for .com when the web was new but is part of the problem now that it has grown so large. If .biz or .info have any success businesses are just going to register their name under all TLD's to avoid potential confusion. Ford Motor Co. is not going to let a site about the artist Henry Chapman Ford, the The Ford Diner or the Ford Law firm get the domain ford.biz. It seems the logical solution would have been to create more specific TLD's (ford.law, ford.art) and even more importantly make easier and encourage the use of existing geographic TLD's (i.e. ford.ma.us) for local brick and morter businesses who would find a TLD indicating their physical location a distinct advantage. The only new TLD that seems that it *might* help is .name which could get personal and family domains out of the .com TLD and would also provide those sites protection from companies suing them for the use of their own family name.

  94. Boycott .biz! by Mustang+Matt · · Score: 2

    With all the spam I've received on it, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. I hope that no one will buy this sucker due to the crap these loons are trying to pull.

    --
    The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
  95. What a case of WEBRAGE... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    did your mommy neglect you little boy, for the garbage man instead ?

  96. .biz? .not! by clheiny · · Score: 1
    I've received vast amounts of .biz spam, and of course the .biz registrars have failed to honor their own 'remove' process (OK, OK, I deserve what I get for using a spammer's 'remove' method - but I thought this time it would be different...).

    This trick of referring unresolved addresses to a "Hey! Wanna buy a cheap watch?" website is pretty slimy, too.

    So far as I can tell, the .biz registrars and their customers have the ethics and intelligence of a hungry leech. I'm unlikely to even visit .biz domains, much less actually buy one.

    --
    Racing is an addiction that makes heroin look like a vague hankering for something crunchy.
  97. Angry Black Man is a TROLL!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Before you moderate this up, PLEASE check Angry Black Man's posting history, READ his posts, and check the links in those posts. You'll see that every one of them is an Adequacy-style troll.

    Proof that Angry Black Man is a troll:

    1. Most of his posts are crafted to look informative but contain gross factual errors that nobody could make inadvertantly.

    2. Angry Black Man posted to the old Trolltalk.

    3. Angry Black Man often goes for obvious karma-whores early in a story, such as copy-pasting kernel release notes.

    4. Angry Black Man often lies about his identity and flat-out makes things up in order to deceive people.

    5. Angry Black Man lies about his race -- he is NOT Black, he is a pasty-white Adequacy editor. Black people are not intelligent enough to use computers, so obviously he is not black.

    Please send his karma to negro hell.

  98. .BIZ - Why bother? (Unless yours is reg elsewhere) by rfc1394 · · Score: 1
    The registration fee for .biz is more than a .COM or some of the other more "well known" Top Level Domains. Short term it's almost twice as much; long term it's triple. You can register in .com, .org or .net for around $18 each for two years vs. $30 for .biz (or .info). A 10-year registration in one of the "big 3" is about $90 vs. a minimum of $280 for .biz or .info. And that's from a "discount broker". The more famous registrars charge more.

    Choose .BIZ: "Less recognizable and more expensive." Sounds like a winning advertising slogan!

    About the only reason for using it is if someone else has the one you want in .com, etc. Otherwise it's overpriced.

    Paul Robinson <Postmaster@paul.washington.dc.us>

    --
    The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
  99. Anyone else had problems registering? by vertel · · Score: 1

    So, since I know how great for business a new .biz domain name will be for me, &lt/sarcasm&gt I went and tried to register around 12:01 11/07. No such luck. Here's what happened to me:

    First, tried with dotster.com, my registrar of choice; they cater to the sysadmin type, and are usually pretty good. When I tried to start registration there, it did lookups as oof.biz.biz instead of oof.biz. That was a failure.

    On to the next try: I hate them with all my heart, but I hoped that they would at least work, since they are the big behemoth. I went to NSI. . They led me through the whole process (credit card verification and all), and then they said "there is an error in your order" and couldn't fufill it. Same with other .biz attempts. grr.

    Then, on to register.com. It worked there, but now there's nothing in neulevel's whois entries.
    WTF?

    Anyone else have similar experiences? Anyone have any suggestions on how to verify that I actually have the domain? Or what to do if I don't?

    grrr.
    --oof.

  100. Can we have .bix please? by kindbud · · Score: 2

    I keep mistyping .BIZ as .BIX. Can we get NeuLevel to mirror .biz into .bix for the fumble-fingers crowd? It would sure help allieve a lot of confusion.

    --
    Edith Keeler Must Die
  101. Am I going to buy one? Heck no by M.+Silver · · Score: 2

    But mainly because I've got a squajillion spams sitting in my spamtrap telling me I *could* buy one.

    Makes the whole TLD smell bad to me already. And no, I haven't checked to see if the spams are coming from anybody with a legitimate business related to the rollout. It's just an irrational gut feeling; I now associate .biz with "Shy About You're Pacakge?" Feh.

    --

    Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
  102. No, it's not a problem for me by asackett · · Score: 1

    I have considered the matter at great length, and no, it's not inconvenient for me. What would be inconvenient would be sending email to the domain computer.biz and not knowing which computer.biz it would be delivered to. Does it go to the original owner of computer.biz, or to the owner of the stolen domain of the same name?

    To my way of thinking, it should go to the rightful owner, the guy who's had that domain for a few years now. And if it's mailed from my domain, it will.

    The inconvenience is for anyone ignorant or foolish enough to buy a Neulevel .biz TLD. They have no way to know that all of their mail will come to them, or that all of their HTML links will lead the user to their web site. That's a game I won't play, and have recommended to my clients that they either buy their .biz from both PacRoot and Neulevel, or don't buy it at all. And it galls me to suggest giving money to Neulevel.

    The internet does not belong to ICANN, or to the government who appointed it. I pay my own way, as does everyone else -- the internet is built that way, as a cooperative. But ICANN wants dictatorial powers, rather than cooperation. I will never support that kind of behavior. Inconvenient? Perhaps. Proudly principled? Hell yes!

    --

    Warning: This signature may offend some viewers.

  103. Finally by DRACO- · · Score: 1

    Finally the lamoid spammers which no one can close the hamper on will stop... or at least change their freaking repeating message i get every 3 days warning me that .biz is about to be online and i should register my domain name soon.

    Im like pisssh.. .biz is bullshiz. I suggest everyone shy away from .biz and all buisnesses associated with registering .biz. Even better.. ignore .biz all together... and warn anyone trying to use .biz that they are not in the normal suffix search order, that anyone just typing googoo without a . will not search for gooogoo.biz except by browsers that have search engine attempts built into the search bar (a la mozilla-netscape aol)

    DRACO-

    --
    Consider yourself blessed if you are sneezed on by a dragon and only get wet, it could have been a fireball.
  104. Personal domains by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    .sex and some type of personal homepage domain would be much more usefull. bobshomepage should not be a .com if it's not a bussiness. maybe .per or .add

    Agree. How about .nom (as in French for "name")? We need a brave government to give free domains to all its citizens, e.g. fred.j.bloggs.nom.au or fred.j.bloggs.au.nom.

    Require a valid birth certificate or passport before granting one, handle it through the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages or local equivalent.

    How would you prevent collisions for people of the same name in a given country? Geographic qualification (john.q.doe.ca.us.nom) would have to have provision for when people move residence. Year-of-birth (john.q.doe.1972.nom) might work but would reveal private information. Then again, a domain with your exact real name reveals private information by its very nature, and these things are a matter of public record in most countries. Possibly a serial number john-q-0015.doe.nom?

    Come on folks, let's get creative here! I want my free personal domain.

    Ocelot