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ICANN Approves Two More Top-Level Domains
Cpyder writes "ICANN has decided to go forward with the implementation of two new top level domains, namely .mobi (for mobile use, sponsored by Nokia and T-Mobile) and .jobs (for job sites).
The ICANN Board meetings regarding the approval are available. It is not yet known when these domains will be available for registration, as this decision merely starts the technical and business negotiations for terms under which these domains will be registered. Normally the domains should become active somewhere next year.
Several other new TLDs are still up for discussion. These include .asia, .mail, .tel and .xxx.
Last October, ICANN approved .travel and .post. More on these new TLDs at PCWorld and Google News."
I can think of dice.jobs, guru.jobs, and hot.jobs and not a whole lot else. What does that do to effectively partition the .com uber-TLD?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
There was time when TLD meant something. You knew a .com was a company, a .org was a non-profit, a .net was service provider etc. Now a .org or .net can be any old profit-driven site selling anything. All these new TLDs are just pointless. .mobi?
And they're not domains anymore. They're vanity plates. A domain used to mean a bunch of computers that were connected and administered as a group. Now, it's a website.
I'm afraid it's just going to get more confusing.
This attempt to "classify" website types more precisely using the TLD is a big mistake, because all classification schemes are fundamentally flawed. Whatever taxonomy you try to come up with, there will always be other ways to look at it, exceptions and other things that just don't "fit". For example, what if I have a website that has some jobs on it, and other classifieds, but isn't dedicated to jobs? Do I get the .com or the .jobs? Oh, I get it, I am supposed to just buy all the applicable domains (and, presumably, confuse my customers with a multitude of possible web addresses).
Having the top level domain suffix be so specific is just a horribly simplistic way of trying to classify websites. Also, why can't they realize that the website owners themselves don't really want it. It just multiplies the number of domains you have to register in order to prevent confusion and squatters.
If they want to fix something real, then how about the problem of all those domain names out there that have been registered simply to display a stupid "search page", with a message saying "this domain is for sale". I seem to remember in the early 1990's that if you didn't use a domain for a "valid purpose" then it simply got returned to the pool. It irritates me no end to think of a domain and check its availability, only to find some asshat registered it for no purpose but to sit on it and hope to squeeze some money out of someone who really wants to use it.
If we were to free up all THOSE domains then that would be a helluva lot more useful to the internet than new TLDs. And isn't ICAAN sposed to be looking after the interests of the internet, rather than simply representing business interests?
Well .mobi makes since so mobile devices can talk to each other without filling up valuable .com domains or forcing calling a static IP Address.
.laptop and .newton or .automobile when my car gets a computer in it? maybe .toaster and .stove for my kitchen?
.mobi name is rediculous and completely useless, and will just end up costing businesses more money who want to control their brand names and now have to register more domain names to do so.
actually no..
should we start making top level domains for every new device that comes out? that's not how the internet works... you have a user agent profile and user agent string that every device sends to your web server, and that is how that should be handled, not with a top level domain name.
should there be
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