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Control of the .ORG TLD

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the insert-group-sex-joke-here dept.

rhwalker22 writes "TechNews.com has an in-depth look at the 11 groups bidding to run dot-org when VeriSign gives it up later this year." I have a sneaking suspicion that my bid of $100 and a case of guinness has been outdone.

7 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Affects all of us by paranoidia · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And for those who don't think that this might affect them in the slightest, look at the current webpage in your location bar.

  2. Re:Harrumph .... by PatientZero · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I don't have anything against commercial interests, but in this case I can't see any reason to not let a non-profit run the .org domain. It's not like the internet doesn't provide enough commercial opportunities already.

    As well, I noted in the article that if a non-profit wins the bid, VeriSign has agreed to give them a $5 million endowment. Given the amount of politics going on within ICANN, can we be sure that VeriSign isn't campaigning for a commercial winner to save them some cash?

    --
    Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
    I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
  3. there IS a microsoft.org registered... by josh+crawley · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I guess nobody had the forethought to do a whois on microsoft.org ...

    Well, here it is, the important stuff anyways.

    Domain Name: MICROSOFT.ORG
    Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, INC.
    Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
    Referral URL: http://www.networksolutions.com
    Name Server: DNS4.CP.MSFT.NET
    Name Server: DNS5.CP.MSFT.NET
    Updated Date: 21-feb-2002

    >>> Last update of whois database: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 04:44:27 EDT

    (trim)

    Registrant:
    Microsoft Corporation (MICROSOFT79-DOM)
    One Microsoft Way
    Redmond, WA 98052
    US

    Domain Name: MICROSOFT.ORG

    Administrative Contact:
    Gudmundson, Carolyn (CG6635) domains@MICROSOFT.COM Microsoft Corporation
    One Microsoft Way
    Redmond, WA 98052
    US
    +1 (425) 882-8080 +1 (425) 936-7329
    Technical Contact:
    MSN NOC (MN5-ORG) msnnoc@MICROSOFT.COM
    Microsoft Corp
    One Microsoft Way
    Redmond, WA 98052
    US
    425 882 8080
    Fax- PATH

    Record expires on 30-Apr-2003.
    Record created on 30-Apr-2000.
    Database last updated on 29-Jul-2002 14:20:27 EDT.

    Domain servers in listed order:

    DNS4.CP.MSFT.NET 207.46.138.11
    DNS5.CP.MSFT.NET 207.46.138.12

  4. MPAA and RIAA *ARE* non-commercial by dananderson · · Score: 3, Interesting
    MPAA and RIAA are non-profit organizations. They are industry trade organizations. They don't make a profit.

    You (and I) may not agree with them, and a lot of other non-profit organizations, but that's the nature of organizations--they usually reflect the views of the members.

  5. Bidding Entities by Transient0 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Funny how Molson is suing for control of the canadian.biz domain(as if a beer company could have intellectual property rights to the name of our country and yet:

    Two foundations, one called "The .Org Foundation" and the other "The DotOrg Foundation" can both be bidding for the same contract at the same time without litigation.

    Nice to see a sign of maturity in this overly-litigous world.

    --
    lysergically yours
  6. Re:You have to solve a computer-science tough prob by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Isn't this just the Byzantine agreement problem, which is solved?

  7. Commercial vs. non-commercial BS by tlambert · · Score: 3, Interesting

    To lay my cards on the table, I've had a ".org" domain registered for more than a decade now, years before Dupont registered all their trademarks as domains in a single day, and forced us to go to a pay-for-domain system. I've defended my domain through several shady attempts to take it over (the last one being non-notification of renewal being required).

    The "Commercial vs. non-commercial" argument is nothing but a bunch of BS.

    The reason the ".com" domain is "used up" has to do with the fact that Netscape initially started doing automatic URL completion using ".com" as the default suffix, and Internet Explorer has since followed suit.

    The result is that the ".com" is a defacto keyword index mechanism built into almost all URL input fields. So it's about controlling a particular keyword.

    The fight over ".org" is the same as the fight over ".info" and ".biz"... trademark defense.

    Almost anyone who owns a trademark feels that they must "grab it" in all possible domain suffixes to "defend" it. And this means money to anyone who controls a top level domain.

    This is the business model of all the people trying to push ".biz" and ".info" domains onto currently registered ".com" domain owners.

    They effectively get a "commission override" (currently $6) of every domain registration in the top level domain. Just like, no matter who you register a ".com" domain with these days, VeriSign gets $6 from you.

    This is the business model of every company trying to obtain control of any top level domain.

    I wish ".tm" didn't belong to a country; it would be a perfect place to put jerks who think that there is only one namespace in the world, the trademark namespace.

    What we really need is a ".rtm" ("Registered Trademark") or even ".trademark" top level domain, and an agreement from legislators that that's all that's necessary to defend your trademark in the domain name space.

    Of course, right now... that's ".com", isn't it? And it's not going to change until the default name completion rules for browsers change to embrace some new top level domain.

    PS: Just to throw jet fuel on this fire... I'm *really* surprised that there isn't a ".aol" top level domain, into which all AOL "keywords" are registered, and all AOL controlled browsers complete to, by default...

    -- Terry