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Loophole found in Internet Domain Naming
kyndig writes "Just what is the 'spirit of internet naming?' ICANN can tell you, as they are the naming experts. In a recent CNN article, ICANN states EnCirca Domain Register is violating the spirit of internet naming by reselling .pro names.
The report states that in early 2000, ICANN allowed 3rd level domains (foo.bar.pro) to be sold. Later, ICANN allowed 2nd level domains (foo.pro) to be sold for .pro as well. The restriction to this selling was that a user must have the 3rd level domain first. There are no reseller checks or usage enforcement other than the request to own a 3rd level domain from ICANN. EnCirca president plans to continue reselling 2nd level .pro domains, unless ICANN places a restriction on doing so."
I normally don't agree with ICANN's position on many things but it seems to me that they could be taking the right stance on this. I'm not sure I would prefer tighter restrictions on domain names and TLDs but wouldn't it be nice if everyone stuck to a consistent naming convention? Imagine something a lot like what we have with newsgroups.
Bah, who needs DNS anyway? Real hackers memorize IP addresses! All you need to know is 216.239.57.99, really.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
Nothing they do makes sense to me. It seems like they're just creating new TLDs willy-nilly and giving control of them to new companies apparently without the ability to enforce any of the controls they've created. What exactly is the purpose of all these new TLDs?
I'm a big tall mofo.
I wonder how useful all these extra tlds are. I've worked on a helpdesk for a .org and a .edu, and one of the REALLY common problems we get is a call from users complaining they can't get on. Invariably, they're typing "www.foo.edu.com" or "www.foo.org.com".
I bet there's a lot of "why can't I get to lawyer.pro.com??" going on.
As so often, a bunch of administrators have decided that they need to regulate the market, but are driven more by self-interest (justifying their jobs) than by interest in supporting a free market.
It's Parkinson's Law: bureaucrats expand their work to fill their budgets. It's why half of my country's GDP goes to pay for civil servants.
In the case of internet domains the only satisfactory long term solution is to allow any company to register a top level domain, with some rules to avoid abuse, and then to allow a free market for reselling, giving, using sub domains.
Since the market has been restricted for so long, there should be a period in which existing domain holders and trademark holders can get "their" names without excessive conflict.
All the rest - the "official registrars", the annual fees, the ICANN and their rules - it's just a tax on using the Internet for building interesting communications structures.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
There is no "Loophole found in Internet Domain Naming" as the headline says. The loophole lies in the Policy for a certain TLD. It has nothing to do with internet domain naming.
The purpose of all the new TLDs is "To allow domain registrars to make more money."
.com domain, rather than having a virtual directory under the domain of the publisher - e.g. paramount.com/drecky_summer_movie/
.biz - after all, I know that when I see a .biz domain I feel great trust for the domain holder, as we all know that .biz mean business, and that anybody with a .biz must therefor be trustworthy!
That is why every little movie simply must have its own
That is why Joe's garage on the corner down the street must have JoesGarage.com, or at least JoesGarageAtFifthAndMain.com, rather than joesgarage.ict.ks.us.
Domains get cheaper the further down the heirarchy they get - domain registrars cannot charge as much for *.lawyers.com as they can for *.com.
Unlike physical items like land or gold, new TLDs can be created ad infinitum, so the registrars "figger" (they don't "figure" or "reason" or "think" - that is beyond them) they can get ICANN to keep creating new TLDs and they can continue to make the same amount of money forever.
Of course, that has worked out so spectactularly well in the case of
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Excuse me, I had to replace the sarcasm fuse in my keyboard.
www.eFax.com are spammers
The .pro domain was specifically stated to be created for 'professionals' - doctors, lawyers - basically jobs you would have recognized as professionals in 1950, it's not just ANY professional that could get a .pro!
.pro for anyone who has the cash. Personally I wouldn't see that as a problem, but the fact of the matter is it was originally intended to be established, checked, professionals.
.com - maybe the net and org - and are done with it. A few of the niche markets get their .tv for example (oh the irony), but that's recognizable - and they're pimping their URL at you constantly while you watch. I could understand a .law for lawyers and the likes, but .pro is just too generic.
The problem is they're not doing any checking, they're just opening up the
I suppose the real point was to say "these people have been checked and have shown they are professional, so you can trust them - at some level - with your information". Basically a free 'level of trust', similar to a SSL cert.
The problem is, amongst other things, nobody would goddamned well know that. Joe schmoe is going to put more trust in law.com than law.pro - "what the hell is pro".
Most people just go out there and get their
IMO - the concept has failed, and was a bad assumption to begin with. If you're going to be branching out more and more domains, trying to bring in the big bucks, make them really friggin specific so they're useful.
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
This removes a single point of failure from the domain name system - every single root domain server can fail, and most people will only notice when they enter a TLD which doesn't exist (at which point they will get a DNS failure instead of an nonexistend domain error). Similarly, if the .com servers failed, then you would still be able to access .org domains (for example).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Too late to cry about that now. That went out the window the first time a non-commercial entity bought a .com domain...
...simply "let's get rich quick"?
.tv sites start being about the island of Tuvalu.
.co.uk is the normal domain for businesses) we've suffered years and years of the company that owns the (supposedly invalid according to ICANN's rules uk.com domain selling worthless 3rd level domains to people, who unsurprisingly find lots their traffic going to the 'co.uk' with the same name.
.uk.com
I'll believe otherwise when
Here in the uk, (where
99% of my spam comes from people who work for foo.uk.com (where foo is my company's domain) who sign up for junk and get their own address wrong. ICANN doesn't want to know about this flagrant abuse of the system, presumably because there is no financial gain to be had by closing down
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Had to read the link myself to understand it, the article summary is less than clear.
Basically, the idea was you could initially only buy third level domains such as IAAL.law.pro, but you had to provide credentials to establish your professional status to buy them.
ICANN then allowed second level domains to be sold - e.g. IAAL.pro - but you had to own a third level domain first and hence have gone through the credential-establishing process.
EnCirca are selling second level domains to be sold without having a third level domain first, thus skipping the credential-establishing bit entirely, and this is bad.
That's as far as I understand it anyway. Does that make sense?
The reason Joe's Garage needs www.joesgarage.com rather than joesgarage.ict.ks.us is because it seems more professional. It creates an illusion of size to the people that don't fully understand the way the system works; ie bob smith who is looking to have his car serviced.
.com TLD and were fairly large and I think that idea has stayed with us until now.
In the early days of the web, most of the websites worth looking at had a