Slashdot Mirror
New ICANN TLDs May Cause Internet Land Rush
wiryd writes "A new ICANN proposal would allow applications for almost any TLD. From the article: 'Tourists might find information about the Liberty Bell, for example, at a site ending in .philly. A rapper might apply for a Web address ending in .hiphop. "Whatever is open to the imagination can be applied for," says Paul Levins, ICANN's vice president of corporate affairs. "It could translate into one of the largest marketing and branding opportunities in history."'"
"Tourists probably won't find information about the Liberty Bell at a site ending in .philly just like they don't, for example, find anything useful at sites ending in .info."
If you see a company snap up a new TLD at the recommendation of their marketing department, it's time to sell their stock. Unless somebody comes up with a novel technical use for an entire TLD, this is going to be a massive flop.
My dad still gets confused when an address ends in something besides, ".com".
Veritas patesco per quaestio questio. Truth is revealed through questions.
Tourists might find information about the Liberty Bell, for example, at a site ending in .philly.
Or maybe .pa or maybe even .penn or maybe even .hist or maybe even .bells or maybe even .revwar? Or maybe tourists will have to check all of those since they're all valid categories? And maybe the site www.ushistory.org/libertybell/ will have to register in all of those categories?
A rapper might apply for a Web address ending in .hiphop.
Or maybe .music or maybe .ryhme or maybe .lyric or maybe .album or maybe .songs or maybe .r for "Rapper" or maybe .rap? Or maybe I want to target fans of said rapper and register his name dot whatever on one of those and post it all over message boards. On the site would be a link saying "click here for the latest album free!" where they enter their address and name? Then I Google bomb said rappers name on forums and boards with my site so that it shows up as number one in Google. If I get sued for it, just give it up and dream up another TLD that could dupe a fan. Let's not even get started on my vast collection of www.google.cmo, www.google.ocm, www.google.moc, etc.
... what exactly is the point of this again? An ICANN get rich quick scam?
I'm just going to throw out the idea that TLDs were never intended to be a complete ontology of all things. And you're making a whole lot of problems (security and logistical) for people so that you can make clever domain names. Is this really necessary?
The article makes them sound ridiculously expensive
My work here is dung.
What a business it is. And you never really can "own" a domain, you simply lease it. Miss a payment and a squatter owns your traffic.
of horrible urls. How will people still be able to understand URLs if the are horribly malformed? Soon, people will not be able to distinguish between a TLD and a domain and people will fall to cleverly constructed scams.
Also, no domain is safe. Everybody can now claim google.philly or google.hiphop and companies can do nothing about it(or start countless lawsuits). This is a bad idea and implementing this will cause the www to be more confusing than it is now.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
"It could translate into one of the largest clusterfucks in history."
FTFY
Remember when Pandora opened that cute little box?
The biggest cash grab ever.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
ICANN is now going to allow people to purchase their own gTLDs (for a price, of course). And when you own the TLD, you are the one who gets to set the rules for registration of domains underneath said TLD. As if WHOIS records aren't already bad enough; now companies can buy up their own TLDs and set their own rules for contact information for customers who purchase domains under said TLD.
.net, .org, and a few others). If they sell a domain like ".pillz" to your favorite spammer, he can setup an unlimited number of second level domains under that for his spamming enterprise, and will have no obligation to have any contact information (valid or not) for those domains. From which will rise the eternally-registered spamvertising domains, over which nobody will have jurisdiction because there will be no record of where the owner (or his business) resides.
Currently, if you receive a spam email selling you (insert favorite spamming product here), you can look up the domain name that is being spamvertised, and generally figure out who is responsible for the operation. With that information you can contact the registrar and the hosting company regarding the activity that is going on. And currently, if the registrar does not react accordingly, you have some (though very limited) choice of action through ICANN if the registrar is blatantly in violation of their obligations to maintain accurate records.
However, ICANN's obligations end with the most common TLDs (.com,
This will open the floodgates in a way we have not seen before. I discussed this a while ago when they first brought up this horrendous idea. But they will keep with it, because it will make some fast money. The rest of us can all go to hell with our email.
Forget the land rush. This will cause a spam rush that could potentially make sub-prime mortgages look like a good idea.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
One of the biggest reasons to have a specific domain name is because it's memorable enough and relevant enough so people will use it in lieu of a search engine.
(EG. If I don't know the URL for McDonalds restaurants, am I going to Google for it, or would I just try www.mcdonalds.com first?)
When you make the TLD an "anything goes" deal, vs. a distinct few possibilities - you make it MUCH harder for people to find you that way. (Initially, people will keep trying .com, knowing that's the "standard" ... and as time goes on, all the people registering random, new TLDs will cause those .com based searches to be increasingly worthless. They'll go back to doing searches for you, vs. taking random stabs as to what TLD you might be under.)
I really wish that instead of arbitrary TLDs, that from the beginning, domain names would have been a free form string. Say, 64 characters, barring special characters like spaces and so forth. It's not like people use the existing TLDs consistently. Cool things about such an approach: really creative, fun names would crop up. No more domain squatting nonsense; you'd have much more freedom in naming your site.
... anybody who has $185,000 for the fee, that is.
What's this all about? I surf the internet using IP addresses.
My favorite site is 216.34.181.48
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
Forget about those old blah street names and numbers! Now you can request a NEW EXCITING address that would really mean something to your friends and family!
Instead of:
1122 A St.
North Somewhere, NY 99999
You can now purchase:
Hey, I'm here and you can find me at the end of the road on the left side right past the dog that always barks at you and only has three legs unless his owner has him chained up in the back so in that case you'd have to look for the broken tricycle that I left by the front door. Oh and I'm somewhere on the top of the map in a really heavy population state!
Act Now!
-- I really need to bleed off some of this
Where do we sign up to have this not happen?
Perhaps it's time we revolt and set up a new Internet with a non-commerical clause so we can get back to using the Internet for what it was intended for, making us smarter rather then selling us shit...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Anybody who says "It could translate into one of the largest marketing and branding opportunities in history." as though it is a good thing needs to have their face introduced to the cluebat. Followed by the truthbat and the justicebat. Then the cluebat again, just to be safe.
.xxx
That'll probably be one of the first few to go, right after .con, .c0m, .0rg, .etc .
There is one exception to this: .cheezburger has been reserved for ICANN's exclusive use.
slashdot.slashdot.slashdot
or
slashdot.dotorg
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Sadly, that makes me think of usenet more than the web...
Did they ever make an alt.microsoft.developers.developers.developers ?
.xxx and .sex were rejected and "banned" ages ago.
I suspect this will take either of the two extremes:
Rubber-stamp everything and try to rake in money.
Keep that asshole shut tight and reject most applications.
Is ICANN a bunch of moron? Are they corrupt? Do they like money? Are sensationalist news articles fed to the media in order to get people to "BUY NOW!!! EVERYONE'S BUYING NOW!!! HURRY BEFORE THEY'RE GONE!!!"?
ICANN can go suck a top level dick.
You forgot the third option. They'll likely bypass the normal pricing for their new gTLD crap and have a special auction for the .xxx and .sex ones. The easiest way to predict their next move is to think "What would I do if I could make up arbitrary rules regarding domains, charge whatever I like for it, and no one out there is likely to step in and stop me?"
Moderators: Before moderating a comment Insightful/Informative, check to see if a child post has already refuted it.
OOGA OOGA