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ICANN Releases Draft For New TLDs
NdJ writes "Looks like a whole new domain name battle ground is about to open up. ICANN have just made available their How to Apply for a New Generic Top-Level Domain Draft Applicant Guidebook. It won't be cheap for the individual, but certainly achievable for many domain-name-pimps. 'The Evaluation Fee is designed to make the new gTLD program self-funding only. This was a recommendation of the Generic names Supporting Organization. A detailed costing methodology — including historical program development costs, and predictable and uncertain costs associated with processing new gTLD applications through to delegation in the root zone — estimates a per applicant fee of $US185,000. This is the estimated cost per evaluation in the first application round.'"
I always assumed the reason behind .org, .net, .com and country TLDs was to keep things organized and consistent. Why have they decided to do what appears to me as simply going back on themselves?
The .com, .net, and .org domains have meant absolutely jack-squat for years now. May as well open up the field.
Of course, this means a company like McDonalds will now be forced to register "mcdonalds.[every possible alphanumeric string]" -- this ought to be interesting.
As if things weren't dificult enough to your average Joe Internet User. Most people have a hard enough time understanding that not all websites end in .com as it is.
I disagree. Google has assloads of money, so they register the TLD "google". Then they can provide "groups.google," "search.google," "gmail.google," "maps.google," et cetera. Same for companies like McDonald's, Microsoft, Chase Bank, et cetera. Every big company that can afford it will use the TLD as their domain name, and ICANN will get solid gold Ferraris from the money they rake in.
Meanwhile, do you think Ubuntu will be able to pony up the money for "get.ubuntu"? How will it look when "www.fedora.org" has to compete with "get.windows"?
The .com, .net, and .org TLDs will become the "subsidized housing" of the Net, where all those who can't pony up the cash have to stick their domains.
Then IBM, Microsoft, and Jenna Jameson file complaints with ICANN, who use their Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy to automatically award the names to the trademark holders. And, of course, ICANN get even more money out of this, since it costs money to file the complaint.
As it is, ICANN has been falling flat on what they could be doing to curb the spam epidemic. But now if they start selling TLDs to any schmuck with enough money, they've just thrown what little clout they had, right out the window.
Previously, domain registrars were obligated to abide by the registrars terms set forth by ICANN/Internic as part of their terms for being a registrar in the ICANN-controlled TLDs. But if ICANN is going to sell new TLDs outright, they are handing over the keys entirely. Just wait until people start buying TLDs that are misspelled variants of viagra. Then we'll see spam floods from those and nobody will be accountable for the bogus pharmacies under those domains that are selling poison across the internet.
I agree, ICANN's time has come and gone. It should be replaced by an international organization with international allies for international goals and solving international problems. Anyone who thinks that the US can solve the spam problem just by passing new laws is a fool.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Probably. Mark Shuttleworth made nearly $600mil prior to setting up Canonical. :)
Meanwhile, do you think Ubuntu will be able to pony up the money for "get.ubuntu"? How will it look when "www.fedora.org" has to compete with "get.windows"?
It will look exactly the same, most of the people today don't type domain names, they just use a search engine and click on the first link. They won't even know what a domain name is or where to find it.
La vida no es una pastafrola.
.gov, .mil, and .edu are anomalies and should really be a subset of .us.
Country TLDs would work fine if the smaller countries kept better control over them but since they don't even there there tends to be issues.
Yes, but really, do we even need TLDs at all anymore, if they're going to allow anyone with enough cash to register a TLD, why not just do away with them altogether.
http://slashdot/
http://google/
http://microsoft/
etc.
Realistically this would be better than having them register "http://*.google/", "http://*.microsoft/", etc. and would basically achieve the same purpose, TLDs were originally made to keep things organised, clearly they no longer want that.
Of course this would probably cause problems if you have "foo.com" and "foo.org" fighting over "foo"
Christian, uh, forgot his last name, the guy in the BOFH and Usenet II discussions, set .DOT up in 94. It still works. You just can't see it. But that's your choice how you configure what servers you believe to tell you what tlds exist.
http://slash.dot/ has worked just about forever. I've always found it amusing slashdotters never noticed, even when other poeople did.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Marc Hurst set this up in 96. It still works. You just can't see it. But that's your choice how you configure what servers you believe to tell you what tlds exist.
Need Mercedes parts ?
$185k per TLD application
$ wc -l /usr/share/dict/words /usr/share/dict/words
479625
that makes
$ dc
185000
479625*p
88730625000
Eighty-eight billion, seven hundred thirty million, six hundred twenty-five thousand dollars.
And no sense.