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Plans For New TLDs

babycakes writes "Yesterday ICANN unanimously approved a proposal to add a number of new TLDs, to be determined at a later date. Here's the story on InfoWorld and at the BBC."

12 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. .porn by martingunnarsson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A .porn domain would be good, if most of the porn was collected under a single TLD it would be easy to block it at schools and so on.

    --
    Martin
    1. Re:.porn by Dun+Malg · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't think porn sites should be forced into it. It's better to somehow make it cool for porn sites to have a .porn address.

      "Cool"? Pornography on the internet isn't a high-school popularity contest-- it's about making money. Making .porn "cool" might get a few porn site operators who still idolize Fonzie, but for the rest of 'em you're going to have to appeal to their pocketbooks.

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
  2. Monopoly! by WPIDalamar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ICANN's a damned monopoly with no interest for the common internet user. We need another top level domain registrar.

  3. .com worth more by QaBOjk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What's funny is that a .com domain name has much more value than any other TLD.. but to purchase any new TLD costs 3 times as much as a .com

  4. Bad choice of TLDS. by irc.goatse.cx+troll · · Score: 5, Interesting

    " the International Air Transport Association (IATA) stated its case for ".travel," the World Health Organization (WHO) lobbied for ".health," Nokia Corp. for ".mobile" and a group of Internet companies said it wants ".III" for individuals"

    IMO most of those are pretty useless. ICANN should be working on revoking the country TLDS's that are being abused (.tk, .tv). Why add more unneeded TLDs that will just confuse things? .III: Of all these proposals, this makes the most sense reasoning wise, but why three I's? .mobile: I'd love to type 'mobile' out with those annoying keypad typing things. .travel: Well look who's too good for .com's .health: Same, might be useful for only 'correct' health sites to prevent users from being misinformed, but who decieds that?

    Also, Has anyone here actually been glad that .info and .biz are in use?So far I've only seen one .info, and it was misused (No info on the site, it was a network). Still no .biz's yet

    --
    Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
  5. PS. by jonr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And people who only regiesters domain names for redirects or "buy this domain for $1000" should be flogged in public!
    J.

  6. Wrong Way! by Greyfox · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Adding more TLDs is going the wrong way. As others have said, there are already the country code TLDs. So phase out the existing .com, .net and .org TLDs and make everyone go by country code. It's easy enough to put your country in your search domain anyway, so that if I said "ibm.com" I'd get ibm.com.us, while someone in Japan would get ibm.com.jp. This would solve the problem of non-multinational companies taking over a domain for all countries, too, AND allow much easier regulation of country specific domains like .kids. Face it, no one in the rest of the world is going to use .kids anyway.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  7. DNS...why do we use it? by Joe+U · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Additional TLD's won't help in the long run, because when it comes down to it, it's just all part of an aging DNS system.

    The better solution would be to replace DNS with a better naming system.

    Search engines are a good start but they are too hit or miss on many topics. Those with IE/Windows, try using the Google toolbar as your address bar for a week. It makes a decent DNS replacement system (Okay, it hides DNS, it still uses it, but it wouldn't be a big jump to switch Google to an all IP address solution)

    Leaving DNS will be a huge task, bigger than changing to IP v6. There needs to be some way to get everyone to install the replacement, or convince Mozilla/Netscape, AOL and Microsoft to include it.

    On a side note, at this time, there is only one plugin that has made it this far, and that's Flash. So, it can be done, there just has to be a compelling reason to get people to do it.

  8. Re:Which solution would better? by mpe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Would it be better to have many tightly regulated TLDs, such has only allowing non-profit organizations to use .org, or would it be better to have just a couple of very generic TLDs?

    Or even you don't get a .com unless you are a commercial business operating in more than one country. A generic TLD would be something like .misc or .etc rather than treating .com, .net and .org as being .misc.

    As it stands, most of the existing TLDs are not very regulated,

    Indeed some of then have become less well regulated as time has gone on.

    thereby defeating the orginal point of having different TLDs.

    If domain names were used properly there wouldn't be an issue. The problem is treating a hierarchical system as though it is a flat namespace. No one is demmanding that there be more coutry names for postal mail or more country codes for telephones.

    The other big problem is that existing .com owners get first pick of the new TLDs, meaning that it's just another domain companies have to buy/borrow/steal to prevent supposed trademark infringement.

    Implying that the real idea is to make money out of the registrations. Anyway trademarks are ment to be specific to a specific place and type of business, though this appears to be increasingly ignored.

  9. Re:Who needs domain names when you've got Google? by oever · · Score: 4, Interesting

    With URL's you can access the entire web. With Google, you can't.

    In a free world, 'where do you want to google today' might work.

    --
    DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
  10. I would like to see... by anethema · · Score: 4, Interesting

    .inc .ltd

    etc..I think a limited or incorperated company would be happy to have its own Businessname.inc

    Plus its short!
    (unlike SOME i could mention-- nokia.takesmeafuckinghourtotypethisonamobilephone

    --


    It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
  11. Re:Nice troll... by nagora · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Seeing as how the whole point of DNS was so that people WOULDN'T HAVE TO REMEMBER NUMBERS.

    No, it was so the people WOULDN'T HAVE TO TRACK CHANGING IP ADDRESSES. Duh!

    It was thought that the ability to have memorable names was a nice side-effect and that it would be managed by keeping different intellectual property claims in separate domains. That worked for a while but once companies started to leak out of .com and into .net and .org the system rapidly fell apart and it now SUCKS. Go on, set up cocacola.info for all your cola-wars stories and see how long you'll last with the "but it's clearly not THE cocacola because it's .info, not .com" argument. How about something more generic like "apple.co.uk" for your orchard business? Or perhaps the world's Mr McDonalds would like a site devoted to their families? Good luck to them!

    Recognisable names seemed like a good idea but are not viable in the long run; abstracting IP's is vital.

    TWW

    --
    "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"