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Government Finishes Internet Study -- 7 years late

djp928 writes "A study commisioned by Congress in 1998 to report on internet traffic has finally been published -- 7 years, two presidents, and one internet boom/bust later. Some of their findings include "DNS is good" and "We should probably have some more TLDs""

5 of 444 comments (clear)

  1. no more TLDs, please by suso · · Score: 4, Informative

    "We should probably have some more TLDs"

    I don't think we need any more TLDs. Especially since silly TLDs like .museum and .aero are created which are either too long, or aren't restricted in use to just museums and aerospace companies. I feel that online commerce has bent themselves on destroying the usefulness of DNS. Nearly one quarter if not more of ccTLDs can be purchased by the public and used for any purpose. What will happen when countries like Tuvalu (.tv) reach technological savyness and find that their entire TLD has been used up by TV networks, domain brokers and companies that felt they needed to register theirname.com, .net, .org, .cc, .mx, .name, .info, and .tv just in case someone actually thought of typing one of those instead.

    On top of that, some ccTLDs are being sold for crazy prices. I found one regist
    rar that was trying to sell .ro extensions for over $500/year. What?!? Why? D
    oes 'ro' mean something in the same way that 'tv' does?

    People need to learn to properly use what they have before we can move on. Unfortunately, this has rarely happened in our society and in the end sadly, money rules the day.

  2. $1 million by wils0n · · Score: 5, Informative

    FTA

    "Lawmakers had demanded the $1 million federal study, ultimately called "Signposts in Cyberspace," under a 1998 federal law, the Next Generation Internet Research Act."

    1. Re:$1 million by rs79 · · Score: 4, Informative

      The study was used as a tactic by the trademark lobby to impede deplyment of new tlds. "We must assess the effect on stability of the internet by doing such a thing". NTIA nodded its pointy little head and commissioned the report. You'll notice all new tlds added by ICANN todate are considered and declared "experimental". Never mind that 100 new cctlds were quietly added in the past decade.

      And now the report says "dozens of new tlds should be added each year".

      Duh. Double duh. This what Jon Postel said in 1996.

      We now return you to your regularly schedulred ICANN who will do as close to nothing as possible in the area of new tld creation as they can get away with and still pretend to represent the consensus of the Internet community.

      Saaaaaaaay, notice how many lawyers and IP guys are on the ICANN board now? Just a coincidence I'm sure, I'm certain we'll see lots of new tlds RSN.

      --
      Need Mercedes parts ?
  3. Re:What's a TLD? by The-Perl-CD-Bookshel · · Score: 4, Informative

    *sigh* A TLD is a Top Level Domain. Examples of Top Level Domains are .com .net and .org.

    --
    I don't keep a lid on my coffee so when I walk around I look busy -me
  4. Re:They should have... by mattmentecky · · Score: 3, Informative

    Gah!
    Why is it anytime the 'history' of the Internet is brought up someone ALWAYS goes for the cheap Al Gore laugh!
    http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.htm Read.
    You are a victim of spin. I have a question: When George Bush refers to anything with 'we', such as "we invaded Iraq" should he be lambasted because he didn't technically invade anything?