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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""

8 of 444 comments (clear)

  1. We should probably have some more TLDs? by Omega · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "We should probably have some more TLDs"
    Yes because we haven't dilluted the overall TLD structure enough already. It used to be that .org, .edu, .com, .net and .gov had distinct, unique purposes. Now we have .biz, .info and .name? Please, someone tell me what these new TLD's add to the overall namespace (aside from ongoing legal battles over trademarks).

    Was this study done by domain resellers?

  2. Fewer TLDs are needed by OrangeTide · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have a hard enough time getting people to use .net instead of .com on my email address. Too bad someone already took the .com version of my domain else I'd just have that too so people who didn't "get" it could still send me email.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  3. tdl... by bird603568 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    maybe if they had a .blog for blogs, .xxx for the porn and and so on it would be much easyer than making .tk and .tv and .ro (what is that?). The .xxx would cut google time in half.

  4. Re:no more TLDs, please by cmburns69 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem is that nobody thinks "The company I'm looking for is an aerospace company, so I'll try name.aero". Everybody tries name.com, name.net and finally name.org (generally in that order).

    It is the classic chicken and egg problem. Until the general population knows how to use TLD's properly, companies will not start using them properly. But companies will not start using them properly until the general population knows how.

    --
    Online Starcraft RPG? At
    Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
  5. Dejavu! by Orangez · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Quote from the article: "To be honest, most people forgot it was ever going to happen" [end quote]. I'm still counting on that every time a deadline arrives...

    --
    "Never trust a computer you can not throw out of a window..."
  6. Re:no more TLDs, please by FrankSchwab · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Gotta agree. More TLDs just mean more domain names that Microsoft, Walmart, Sears, etc., have to buy up, and don't really expand the number of names available.

    Do you really expect Walmart to be happy with Walmart.com, and not also snap up Walmart.biz, Walmart.org, Walmart.biz, Walmart.us, and anything else that comes up?

    Junk the TLDs. They were a good idea that has fatally flopped in the real world.

    /frank

    --
    And the worms ate into his brain.
  7. Re:no more TLDs, please by fossa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, there are too many TLDs already. If you want to fix DNS, why not fix DNS.

    Things I like about the telephone directory:

    Allows names with spaces

    Allows names with punctuation (O'Malley)

    Allows entries with identical names

    Corporations still have trademark law

    I think the only thing ".com" is good for is making it obvious that you're talking about a website.

  8. Re:$1 million by Bob_Robertson · · Score: 4, Insightful

    John Postel was wrong. I was at the IETF BOF that discussed the issue. So was Postel. It was nice meeting him.

    The guy from Dunn and Bradstreet was correct when he said that "we" were trying to use the registry like an index.

    As other people have pointed out, CokaCola just has to buy coke.com, coke.net, coke.us, coke.biz, coke.firm, coke.soda, coke.etc.etc.etc. More top level domains does not increase the "name space", nor does it increase usability. In fact, it obfuscates.

    Indexes and portals are in increasing use all the time. A new verb has entered the language, "to google". There is in fact no reason to use a domain name at all, because someone will find your page in Google regardless of what it's called. Even at the time of the BOF, I gave the examples of Yahoo and AltaVista making domain names obsolete.

    I really thought that the success of Geocities (.com) was going to make it obvious to everyone. Instead of extra names, they had subdirectories. Numbered subdirectories and a search engine. The URL didn't relate to anything at all.

    So what was the result of that BOF, where the brightest minds came together to discuss the issue? Even Postel agreed, it would be best to reduce the number of TLDs. They have outlived their usefulness, that was based on insufficient hardware size/speed at the time. "We" already have country codes, .US, .UK &etc. to differentiate the physical top servers.

    At some point, the .earth TLD will be appended to them, but I doubt I'll have to worry about that.

    Bob-

    --
    The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics