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ICANN Responds To gTLD Plan Comments
angry tapir writes "ICANN has delayed its plans to sell new generic top-level domains while responding to public comments about the controversial proposal. The organization has released a 154-page document detailing and analyzing the hundreds of comments (PDF) it has received about its gTLD plan. In response to several concerns brought up by the public and companies in the Internet industry, ICANN has moved out the projected timeline for taking applications for new gTLDs from September to December."
a 154-page document detailing and analyzing the hundreds of comments (PDF)
It's a trap!
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Further balkanization of gTLD's does nothing for the end user. It will be a great stream of new revenue for registrars though.
ICANN has become nothing more than a pawn of domain registrars. Read the meeting minutes and see for yourself.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I, for one, am for it. At the very least it will derail the slimy domain squatters that just sit on every-damn-word-in-the-dictionary-and-combination-thereof.com|net|org
And I don't want to hear the shit about companies protecting their brand name. It is just about impossible to give your company a name that has not already been used *somewhere* and/or registered as a domain name.
- Sick of it all
And I was so looking forward to registering ".1" so I could realize my dream of having an external URL at 127.0.0.1.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
But how much of that is squatters, anyway? I know I've had many times where I've gone to register an domain name and it's been taken, but when I go to the sites under that domain, I find placeholder pages with ads.
Don't worry sir, I'm sure that your company will be willing to pay our very reasonable fees for all possible variations of its name, and any distinctive trademarks. It would be such a pity for them to fall into the hands of spammers, link farmers, or others who would reflect poorly on them...
The best example of such a registry I can think of is the callsign of a radio station. These are globally unique (the first letter or two identified the country, and the rest is assigned by the radio regulatory authority of that country (in the US, the FCC). Thus, I could see adding a TLD .radio, which would be limited to callsigns as the second level domain. (e.g. wkrp.radio)
Other such global registries could include UPC or ISBN prefixes. PCI, USB or ethernet manufacturer IDs, or the like are also globally unique ID's and may be worth putting into DNS.
The .name TLD is still pretty unused (unless you have a very common name), and was created for exactly that purpose.
So they took feedback, and then did what with it? They compiled (parts of) it into a PDF. Wow, I'm impressed. Now in response they have moved out the date by a few months; great.
.viagra and .software TLDs and self-administers the registrations within them as permitted by the ICANN plans. Once that happens we'll get spam from dirtcheap.viagra and superubercheap.software, which will be for domains that have no readable whois data and ICANN will just shrug their shoulders and say "talk to the registrar" (who themselves won't speak to us).
I can't wait until some shady group in another country buys the
Thanks ICANN. I guess the assumption was right, you don't give a damn about feedback after all. As long as you can make a few more bucks on new registrar accreditations (whatever that will mean when you start selling new gTLDs) you're happy, right? And thats really all that matters on the internet.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Just a thought experiment. Suppose you set up a TLD - .bob for instance. Users can set up domains for web sites, e-mail, FTP etc. within .bob just like any other domain, but the rules of using it are different from the rest of the web. Such as -
.bob account holders can access .bob sites. No one else can get in, not even google. .bob sites cannot be accessed anonymously, but .bob sites must guarantee privacy - your usage can't be shared with anyone else.
.bob e-mail addresses or chat names must be linked to an actual person. .bob users can only send/receive e-mails or IM to other .bob addresses. Nothing outside .bob is allowed in. .bob access
.bob account comes with a license with nearly all known media companies. (www.timewarner.bob, for instance.) For a monthly fee you can access any media they have digitized - books, news, film, music, games, software, etc. It's DRMed out the wazoo, of course. All usage is tracked. Violate the terms of use and you lose your .bob access.
.ftw might only allow services that are fully encrypted and anonymous, for example.
Web -
- Only other
-
E-mail and IM -
- No anonymous addresses or accounts.
-
- Spam is not allowed. At all. You spam, you lose your
Content -
- Your
In other words, a fully privatized portion of the internet. A nightmare to some, but to others - "Access to all media? No spam? $39.95 a month? Where do I sign?"
Other TLDs could set up other ecologies.
Is there anything that would prevent TLD owners from doing this?
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Even US trademark law does not scale well to the Internet. I can't imagine the disaster GTLDs would be for international trademark disputes. The IP lawyers must be licking their lips at the thought of GTLDs.
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