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ICANN to Incorporate TLDs Already In-use?
An anonymous reader asks: "I recently found an article at cnn.com about ICANN considering new top level domains. Some of the proposed TLDs have already been introduced by YOUCANN such as .xxx and have been available to the public at select registrars such as new.net for quite some time. If ICANN incorporates already existing TLDs how will this impact those who have already registered for domain on these TLDs? What implications does this have and how will the ramifications impact how businesses view and utilize the web?"
Simply put, if ICANN adopts a TLD that duplicates a TLD that "unofficially" is being registered by another registration system, then we'll have a fracturing in the standards just like in the way that it's almost impossible to tell who the heavyweight boxing champion is. Whenever you have multiple self-appointed authorities, you're bound to have conflicts.
At the technical level, most users see the domain-name world through the eyes of the DNS servers at their ISP, so in order for a new TLD to be valid for that user the ISP must honor it. However, this can be overridden by using a secondary DNS server or modifying the hosts file on the users side, so we may end up seeing a wave of malware trying to monkey with a users DNS settings so that their sponsor's regisitry becomes the first one consulted. Some of the other registrars have already resorted to distributing such software in order for their domains to be valid for anybody.
At the legal level, an "I got here first" principle will be claimed in trademark lawsuits by the business interest behind these rogue TLD operations. That's going to be a bit of an iffy question, if trademark law really applies to an entire TLD, especially when ICANN is the generally accepted certifying body for TLDs.
So in the end, businesses who don't want a domain name to "fall into enemy hands" are going to have to register the same domain twice, because when this dispute is finally settled, one of the two registrations will be null and void, but it'll be hard to tell which.
Seems to me like the domain name system may get pushed over the edge on this one. It was bad enough when US businesses started to buy up top-level domains from countries that were lucky enough to have two-letter TLDs that had cute meanings to US audiences. This would even further create a "wild west" nature for domain names. ICANN's authority is downright questionable at times, and now they're about to have conflicts with pretenders to the throne.
This really aren't new. I mean, they're new to most of the world, but there ARE alternative root servers people can use. Check out open rsc.org they tell you how to change your name server. There was also an article at wired a few years ago that talked about the .biz not really being a new domain. .biz was being used on orsc, and then icann started to use it after orsc. Anyway, just don't think you don't have options.
*Shudder* Their software has been responsible for more screwed up computers in my (university student-serving) helpdesk then virtually any other piece of crapware. I like the idea of getting rid of ICANN, but New.Net is infinately worse.
The ICANN has authority over domain name assignments for most top-level domains (*.com, *.net, *.org, country codes, new stuff line *.info, etc.) and has been assigned the power to create new TLDs.
Other groups have decided they want their own TLDs, so they set up their own name servers (which resolve host names into actual computer IP addresses) with the addition of databases for, e.g., *.web, *.sex, etc. This is unnofficial but technically extremely easy.
ICANN is thinking of asserting its given power over all registries and creating its own official databases for the currently unofficial TLDs. This can cause conflicts with people who have taken domain names with unofficial registries. The fault in my opinion lies with the unofficial registries for advertising an incompatible solution (to use these new names, you need to change your Internet connection settings), but the people who have registered will be in trouble if ICANN starts resolving these new domains and returning "no such domain" for ones that are unofficially registered (and of course vice versa).
Just make a .sex or .xxx domain and force all of the porn sites to go there. Why wouldn't they want to? Offer free transfer of domains. This way, they, and parents, can keep minors away from these materials just by having a simple app (or even something built in to IE) block .xxx/.sex domains. The best way to get rid of activities like this is to give them their own place to play. An example of this is Diablo II - cheaters had their own open battle.net servers where they could cheat, and normal law-abiding players played on the legitimate servers.