Vint Cerf Answering Questions on Top-Level Domains

penciling_in writes "Over at CircleID, Vint Cerf is taking question from the community Slashdot-style with regards to top level domains. 'As most readers are no doubt aware, when it comes to the topic of Top-Level Domains (TLDs), Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) takes center stage. From the existing .com and .net TLDs to the newly introduced and future releases, in the past years we witnessed the increasing level of discussions around Top-Level Domains painted -- ever so often -- with political, legal and technical debates. Vint Cerf, Google's VP and Chief Internet Evangelist, who has served as chairman of the board of ICANN since the November of 1999 has accepted CircleID's invitation to directly respond to your questions on the topic. This is your opportunity to have your Top-Level Domain related questions responded by Vint Cerf.'"

Comments

Like...

[Mrcowcow]

If .xxx will see the light of day?

Re:Like...

[fr1kk]

As a student who is rather naive to the process of managing domains, what kind of process is involved when it comes to deciding a new top level domain? Also, aside from the given national domains, what is the life cycle of a potential domain that could possibly come to existance, and how do external groups affect the decision (i hate to be cliche, but for example: .xxx domains and the pressure from right wing groups to prevent the domain from allowing a general 'acceptance' of the genre .xxx assumes)? -Blaine

Hmm, google VP must have some power then...

[romiir]

Can we have www.google? Thats so much easyer to type then www.google.com
and while were at it... lets get www./
(Worst that can happen, they say no...)

my first question would have to be...

[vena]

is there a real use for having TLDs anymore? no one follows the current rules to any reasonable extent, and it just seems more an artificial way of creating a market sphere, such as how a .com appears more legitimate than a .net for a business regardless of its position in network services. as of now, they provide no discernable organisational structure to speak of imho...

Re:my first question would have to be...

[sketerpot]

The .edu, .gov, and .mil TLDs are pretty strict. Anything with .org is likely to be a non-profit organization. So yes, TLDs do have a point.

Re:my first question would have to be...

[AuMatar]

edu, gov, and mil yes. Org is wrong- anyone can register a .org. So while a lot of nonprofits have .org, most .orgs are not nonprofit. YOu're on slashdot.org right now.

Wiki!

[Aquatopia17]

How about a .wiki TLD? It's just crazy enough to work, considering the countless wikis to be found out there. Wiki Wiki Wiki!

Re:Pretend I am Jon Postel...

[AuMatar]

Its pointless. Unless you make it mandatory, there's no reason for a porn site to use it, as many places will block .xxx by default. And making it mandatory is a violation of free speech.

.biz, .info, .museum, .aero - phase out?

[Animats]

Is it time to phase out some TLDs as unsuccessful?

• .BIZ The Internet's equivalent of a strip mall in a bad neighborhood. No major company has its primary domain in .biz. Its reputation is that bad. It's used mostly by spammers, scammers, and other low-lifes.
• .INFO There's some use of .info, but not much. Is it worth the trouble?
• .MUSEUM The number of museums in this TLD is so tiny there's a single page that lists all of them. Yet most of the big names in museums aren't there.
• .AERO Supposedly for the aviation industry, it's almost totally unused. The registrar has put up redirect pages for the major airport codes, such as LAX, but many of those are broken or redirect to the wrong page.

When considering any new TLDs, it's worth looking at how these TLDs, from ICANN's first wave of expansion, worked out.

Control

[flyingember]

Given that top level domains were initially created to give a sense of order to the internet, before user@schoolname was more the rule, it seem .com would ONLY be given to commercial groups, .net to networks, etc. I was reading RFC 1480 and it looks like even as late as 1993 a restructure of the US domain system could have been created along the lines of how foreign countries do it. bbc.co.uk would thus be a british site, and bbc.co.us could be bbc americas domain. Instead we have a hodgepodge of international mixes. Thus my question is, why all the chaos in how they were assigned?

Re:Hi-Jacking of small states .tld

[Anonymous Coward]

If .to, .tv, and .cx were "hijacked", then so was every other piece of property that was ever sold by its owner to someone else. The governments of those entities sold the rights to those TLDs. If those governments regret it now, they could seize it back at any time (albeit at the cost of destroying their international financial credibility).

If the adminstrators of .nz wish to allow systems outside of New Zealand to have .nz DNS names, how is this a concern of ICANN or anyone else outside of New Zealand?

I have cell phone service registered in three foreign countries. I pay for the privilege. Why is it a problem to you that someone calling one of those numbers overseas instead rings a phone located in the USA, especially since I pay for the cost of transferring the call here?

Re:Hi-Jacking of small states .tld

[SecureTheNet]

Tuvalu (.tv) sold the rights to their domain to verisign. It was not hijacked from them, it was their right and their decision to sell it. They received over $20 million dollars, which is roughly twice their annual gross domestic product. I fail to see how this constitutes being "hijacked."

.cx is run by a community owned non-profit on christmas island. They also run a non-profit isp on the island. How is this hijacking?

The Cost of Domains

[FathomIT]

Is it legal for companies like Verisign be allowed to raise the rates on yearly domain renewals? Shouldn't the cost of domain renewal and new domain purchases go down because the cost of maintaining TLDs are less (ie equipment, bandwidth, quantity of subscriberships etc.)?

Forget Top Level Domains, Tell Us About 2nd Level

[Schlemphfer]

I've noticed that anytime a domain expires, it doesn't go back into the unused pool and become available to someone else. Most or all of the expired domain names get instantly sucked up the moment they expire by companies nobody's ever heard of that (I suppose) have contracts with the top domain registrars. I suppose this amounts to thousands or tens of thousands of domain names vanishing from circulation each year; domains that I have to think are essentially ransomed off by these bulk buyers, one by one, to anyone who really, really wants it.

I've got to think that, when purchased in bulk, it costs pennies, or perhaps tenths or even hundredths of pennies, in actual administrative costs to keep these domains registered each year.

Since costs of maintaining registration for expired domains can approach nothing, are we at risk of these re-registration companies eventually having permanent ownership of nearly every domain a person might think to register? Might it not be in the public interest to have a minimum annual registration fee per domain (say, three dollars), to help ensure that domains aren't held in perpetuity by speculators?