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Berners-Lee on the TLD Explosion

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the good-intentions-and-human-nature dept.

kmccammon writes "Tim Berners-Lee recently released a white paper outlining a number of justifications for stalling (at least temporarily) the expansion of the top-level domains. Among the reasons cited: bad economics. As evidenced by the .biz and .info debacle, more top-levels does not necessarily mean more domain name availability. All it really means is that every .com/.net owner now needs to rush out and buy the same name under each new TLD. Thus, the 'value of one's original registration drops. At the same time, the cost of protecting one's brand goes up.'"

8 of 303 comments (clear)

  1. Relative failure of new TLD's by leitec · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've found that the vast majority of sites using new, alternative domain names are pure garbage. Most are sketchy e-commerce stores with terrible domain names and even worse web design; in other words, I'd never, ever buy from them. Some .info sites worked out well (z80.info, for example), but .biz and the like is bad FrontPage heaven. Some of the national TLD's have found good non-commercial use, like the many personal .nu sites out there, but again, the level of trust goes down with a commercial site under these domains. Has anyone observed anything similar?

  2. Re:DOes a domain name owner... by SoTuA · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe. Here in Chile, the ruling entity on the .cl domain usually turns down applications to register www.cocacola.cl or www.mcdonalds.cl if you aren't Coke or McD's. That happened after some squatter went out and registered a bunch of stuff like luckystrike.cl, for example. The cost of contesting all those registrations made it worthwhile to do a bit of "research" before granting domains.

  3. Re:Stop and think by AKnightCowboy · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The problem isn't really big companies that have trademarked names, it's the "little guy" that has webhosting.com or acmenetworking.com. Unless they go buy all the other TLD variations then some smacktard will come along and register acmenetworking.net and acmenetworking.org and start doing business as them.

    Look at extreme situations like handybackup.com vs. handybackup.net. Two ENTIRELY different companies. handybackup.net pirated handybackup.com's software and hacked it to release their "new and improved" 4.1 version, stole handybackup.com's site layout down to the fscking images and is pretty much indistinguishable from handybackup.com except for very minor things like being Novosoft LLC instead of Novosoft Inc. That's just outright fraud.

  4. New TLDs are just a shakedown by yelvington · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When .biz and .info emerged a couple of years ago, I had to spend a six-figure sum of my company's money to register trademarks, placenames, product names, et cetera ... primarily as a defensive maneuver. We didn't get a cent of value out of those registrations, but we did have to fight several expensive legal challenges (multiple companies may use a word as a trademark in different contexts, so disputes naturally arise).

    In my opinion, these new TLDs were successful only as a tool for driving revenue to registrars and especially Afilias and Neulevel (which administer those TLD's).

    1. Re:New TLDs are just a shakedown by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I agree... .biz is a redundant domain to .com. and in a conflict-free world .biz would end up matching .com exactly.

      Really, the only use I see in .biz is for a "split the baby" settlement to double-registration situations, where both have a legit right to the trademark in different contexts, where one takes .com and one takes .biz.

  5. I agree, "little guy" is screwed. by twitter · · Score: 5, Interesting
    After losing my domain name to the theif who runs this disgraceful site, I'm about to give up on domain names all together. What happened? The name I registered was bombed out by spam, my ISP was uncooperative and sleaze bag, who runs a his own big registrar grabbed it up.

    Do I think Sigmund has a real interest in my former domain name? Only as a speculator. What else can "Buy domains inexpensively! Resell them at competitive prices!" mean?

    So what can I do about it? Sigmund is a lawyer with $250,000 worth of infrastructure behind him. I've seen WIPO cases with more going for them lose. The year I spent building that site and name are now effectively Sigmund's and there's nothing I can do about it because I don't have the time, resources or knowledge.

    Problems like that need to be solved. Small businesses are going to be driven from the web by practices like that. If they go, so goes the web itself because people are not going to trust a non free media. It's simple banditry and no one does business in a lawless place.

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  6. bad idea in the first place by joebolte · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I really have to say that I think the whole idea of TLD's was a bad idea in the first place. We should have just had keywords that linked to DNS so you wouldn't have to remember whether somethign was .org .net or .com It seems that multiple domains are only for people trying to be deceptive and grab traffic from a better-known site. It doesn't help to have somehting like abra.org available instead of abra.net People just can't remember which one it was so they should both lead to the same site, just abra.

  7. Re:Eliminate'em by MavEtJu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Let Sony addresses all end in .sony. If Sony in Chile wants it's own address, it becomes sony.cl, or sony.us in the United states.

    You don't get the idea behind DNS trees. Sony Chili would get cl.sony, Sony USA would get us.sony.

    That way they only have to worry about one TLD instead of (like they have now) all the ccTLDs.

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