Slashdot Mirror
Rival Green Groups Bid To Snatch .eco Domain
Peace Corps Library writes "BBC reports that two rival environmental groups are lining up supporters to try to take control of the new .eco domain aimed at green groups. In March, former US vice president Al Gore backed a bid by the California group Dot Eco to operate the .eco TLD, but now a Canadian environmental group known as Big Room has launched a competing bid to manage it. 'We're two different applicants with two different business ideas. Ours is to sell domain names to raise funds for organizations who can effect change,' says Minor Childers, co-founder of Dot Eco. The group has already entered into contracts with its supporters — such as the Sierra Club and the Alliance for Climate Protection — to give away 57% of its profits from sales. Big Room also plans to generate money from the sale of .eco domain names to fund sustainability projects around the world, however, the consortium, which includes WWF International and Green Cross International — founded in 1993 by former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, also believes that .eco could be used as a labeling system to endorse companies with green credentials. Despite having differences about a model for .eco, both groups will 'definitely have to sit down' together at some point, says Childers. 'We could be one of the biggest contributors to environmental causes anywhere in the world.'"
CHICK FIGHT!!!
It is the universe that makes fun of us all.
Forgive my cynicism but in my experience, humans are not altruistic at all. Like monkeys, we do what we do because it benefits us.
While I fully support green causes for my own selfish reasons (my children), I am skeptical about the motivations of "green" groups. They seem to be using green as a fashion statement and an identity, and don't seem all that motivated to be effective.
But if given a chance to push us around for not being green... they're good at that.
Can't we just create the "Green Police" that ecosopher Pentti Linkola recommended, and be done with these irksome charities?
...'cause Al Gore invented both the Internet and ecology!
organizations should have claim to an entire TLD? Even if they "sit down together", that's still an awful lot of authority being placed in the hands of a very few people. I suspect that there are some other outfits that might want to have a say in this.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The further you get from .com the less the domain matters(at least among non-country coded TLDs). .com is the best, .net and .org are ok, things like .gov are niche, and pretty much anything else is either a once-off gimmick(pidgin.im is clever; but the world's set of IM programs might consume a few dozen domains, total) or just a slum domain that only search engine crawlers will find directly.
.com/.net/.org addresses, the only thing that matters is whether you have a decent rank on common search engines.
"Green" is all the rage at the moment(or, at least, greenwashing is); but I don't see that changing the basic fact that, for anything besides highly recognisable
spoil the Net, don't they? I mean, come on. Wouldn't dot-org suffice for things ecological in a sense?
There are lots of TLDs that no one ever thinks about and hardly ever use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains
When was the last time you visited a .biz site? Have you ever found a position using the .jobs TLD?
How cool is it that the TLD for mobile devices is longer than the usual 3 letter TLD?
Found a lawyer or doctor using the .pro TLD lately? Could you point someone to a good travel agent on the .travel TLD?
Face it, there are only 5 real, non-national TLDs: .com, .org, .edu, .Net, and .gov. All the others are just a waste of time.
whichever can can show that their servers will run on 100% green energy with downtime on par with most other major sites.
If organizations with "green" or conversationalist initiatives as basically your sole customers, why would you charge more than you need to for a domain name and then hand some of the profits back to the same set of companies? In this case, wouldn't it be best to just lower your prices and run as a straight non-profit?
Or for all the giving back bullshit, is this yet another poorly conceived attempt at cashing in on the popularity of the green movement? Who am I kidding? This yet another poorly conceived attempt at cashing in on the popularity of the green movement.
Just how many domains do they think they're going to be selling? At competitive rates you'd have to sell tens of thousands just to keep a single person employed to maintain the TLD, never mind having some money to give away.
Anyone here old enough to remember the first ecology movement? It, too, was lame, with it's own lame, green flag. Just green-n-white bars like the US flag, but a silly character in the middle of the field.
Being good stewards, yes. Endocrinating young children into fairy tales, no. Things like Captain Planet get under my skin. The science they point to is grey at best, and it all serves political parties.
I mean, whether it's hotter than usual, or colder than usual, BOTH are a sign of ManMadeGlobalWarming(TM) for which money must be sent to Washington. That's not science, that's religion!
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
On the flipside, it would be kind of nice to have a .nut domain for all the right-wing neocons and nutjobs out there. It would be easier to just block anything in that TLD,... ;-)
Will anyone even know its there, or care?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'd like to see Mr Gore's financial connections to Dot Eco.
See, your message of world-saving altruism is corrupted when everything you're preaching ends up somehow making you the big $$ personally.
-Styopa
I would claim first post here, but I don't wanna waste the electrons.
As in $$$$$. Sheesh. The usual pattern: From cause to movement to racket. And then the bureaucracy takes it all over. Repeat as needed.
"If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead stuff."
About the only thing "greens" can agree on is population control. China is there model. One child per couple, and forced abortion or even sterilization after that.
Which is why we should deprecate them and turn toward country level TLD's. Let individual countries have control over what domains are allowable. If a company, say Google, has a server in the US, their .com name would end up as google.com.us, if they have a server in Germany, it would be google.com.de. A government web site in the US would be congress.gov.us or in Germany, bundestag.gov.de.
This could even extend to political organizations with in a State. So, in the US, fl.gov.us would be the root to all of the Florida state government web sites, where as ut.gov.us would be for Utah's state government.
There are plenty more examples, but it comes down to de-centralizing control over DNS to the lowest level of political representation.
Is
127.0.0.1 *.eco
a valid entry in a hosts file?
As for the World Widlife federation, the most notable thing I can remember from them is getting the WWF wrestling to change it's name.
Does panda wrestling mean anything to you?
Instead of creating new domains, they should be recycling old ones.
I am disappointed that www.steve.jobs doesn't resolve.
# dig @a.root-servers.net eco ns
[...]
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 54643
[...]
. . . for revenge!
He is still mega-pissed that he didn't become the President of the United States, so he is planning to get his revenge . . . on the whole world!
First he mesmerized folks around the world with his global warming movie. Now, he wants a TLD, which will enable him to wield even more control!
What's next? Death for us all . . . by snoo snoo!?!?!
. . . and where did they get this 57% number . . . from a ketchup bottle? With a keystone shaped label . . . obviously the Freemasons are also involved.
I don't want to be an alarmist, but maybe we should all just take a look at all this evidence . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
No, seriously.
Given his history I suppose it's reasonable that he's against the burning of carbon-based fuels. Still, I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of my nice comfy eco-friendly hammock being officially endorsed by the dream-ripper.
It's enlightening to see that when environmental groups, and especially Al Bore (see for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Investment_Management about his carbon trading hedge fund, so that's why he's pushing it in congress), pops up in the news these days, it has to do with money. Of course, they claim that some of the money will go to "save the world". Right.
What about "steve.jobs" without "www"?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
.....and it's pretty simple to catch.
"two rival environmental groups"
Maybe it's me, but there's ONE earth.
One planet, one sky, one environment. Rival? Work together you superficial bastards.
...umberto.eco
The CB App. What's your 20?
Democrat -> Liberal -> Socialist -> Nazi -> Communist
Look into the Nazi party 'green' initiatives. Look at the Democrat party 'green' initiatives. Duck and cover.
Just shows that the primary reason for these new tld's is to generate money for registries, not to serve any need for new domains. Anyone company who wants to portray themselves as "green" will have to buy a new eco domain, even though they will continue to use their .com domain as well (and will probably keep the .com domain as their primary address)
And I didn't even know that the World Wrestling Federation was green!!
This space for rent, inquire within.
...and that is .eco is already spoken for:
Top-Level Domain: ECO
Domain ID: DW-ECO
Root Administrator: dotWORLDS [DW]
Zone contact: domainmgt@dotworlds.net
NS1.ECO. A 72.55.140.187
NS2.ECO. A 72.55.140.180
Top-Level Domain: ECO
Domain ID: PR-3-ECO
Root Administrator: Herman Xennt [PR-3]
Zone contact: Unknown
ECO. NS NS1.VRX.NET.
ECO. NS NS2.VRX.NET.
NS1.VRX.NET. A 199.166.24.1
NS1.VRX.NET. A 199.166.27.6
NS2.VRX.NET. A 199.166.28.10
Top-Level Domain: ECO
Domain ID: WR-ECO
Root Administrator: WorldRoot (AGN Domain Name Service, Inc) [WR]
Zone contact: Unknown
ECO. NS NS1.VRX.NET.
ECO. NS NS2.VRX.NET.
NS1.VRX.NET. A 199.166.24.1
NS1.VRX.NET. A 199.166.27.6
NS2.VRX.NET. A 199.166.28.10
I've been watching the farce that is the new ICANN process. They seem to think that the only test for a new top-level domain suffix is that it will make money for the corporate owner.
I think it's bullshit. The new domains they have added so far - .aero, .coop, .museum, .biz, .info, .pro, .jobs, .tel - all suck. Okay, I quite like to be able to type http://british.museum/ - but .biz and .info are pretty much used exclusively by make-money-fast scammers, phishers, scammers and other assorted lowlife who like it because it costs a third of the price of a real domain name. I can think of only a small handful of .info domain names that are actually legit - http://rdfa.info/ comes to mind. .aero? What the fuck? Are Boeing and Delta Airlines really having difficulty with domain squatting? .tel and .jobs are complete bullshit. I mean, if you suddenly decide that you want to know the telephone number of your local Starbucks, are you more likely to (a) go to Google and type in "Starbucks Manhattan" or (b) type in manhattan.starbucks.tel. Same for jobs. If you decide you want to get a job working for BigCompany, you go to their website and you click on 'jobs' or 'careers' or whatever. Or you Google. You don't think "Oh, I better go to BigCompany.jobs."
We've also had .mobi, which is completely stupid. The current generation of mobile devices - iPhone, Android G1, Pre, Blackberry - are becoming increasingly capable of showing normal websites. And rather than registering .mobi, most sites seem to think m.whatever.com (for generic mobile: some are also doing i.whatever.com for iPhone-specific sites, and back in the day people had pda.whatever.com for PDA specific sites, wap.whatever.com for stuff written in WML and served as WAP content - I'm sure in Japan, there's probably i-mode specific subdomains or pathnames).
But now ICANN seem to want to make it so that anyone can have a TLD if they pay. There have already been people suggesting .nyc, .london, .paris and other city names (hint: .us, .uk, .fr). Big companies are thinking about putting in bids for their trademarks: I've seriously seen it suggested that someone like Michael Jordan register .jordan, then can have clothes.jordan, shoes.jordan, basketball.jordan and so on.
As for .eco: the only justification for it seems to be that the sale of .eco domains could be used for some useful social end - sell domains, plant trees, reverse global warming or whatever. Okay. Great. That's not nearly enough justification. Hosts that are going to want a .eco domain are either commercial entities (use .com), non-commercial entities (use .org), country-specific domains (use the country code TLD), government (use .gov or your local government national TLD - .gov.uk or whatever), or maybe academic (use .edu or .ac.uk or your country's national TLD).
ICANN are corporate whores and have proven they are completely untrustworthy. The domain name system needs to have a Revenge of the Nerds moment. We need to take it back and put it under the careful guidance of an IETF-like body who will decide TLD decisions on the basis of the needs of the Internet community, in an open and democratic process, rather than a process where you basically turn up with a wheelbarrow full of cash and a dumb idea and then get proclaimed owner of a new TLD. TLDs need to be distributed by IETF-like wise beardy Internet veterans rather than assholes who think the
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
The reason we deride them is because they are all about problems, not about solutions. It is easy to point out the problems in life. Why? Because everything has a cost. Anything you do, there's a cost to, there's a downside. As such, no matter what choice you make, you can always say "This is the problem with that choice." That isn't hard, nor is it productive.
What is needed is to weigh the costs, and by costs we me economic and non-economic, of various solutions and then attempt to choose which one gives the most benefits with the least costs. They ALL have costs, downsides, that isn't the issue. The issue is which is the best.
Well green groups are notoriously bad for simply not caring. They just hate on all solutions. They say you are doing X poorly. So you say ok, well here's a way we can address that. They then hate on the new solution. They are whiners, not problem solvers.
The only thing they ever seem to agree is a solution is to give lots and lots of money to green organizations. They don't have a clear goal as to what will be done with it that'll make an improvement, but they need lots of money. That seems more than a little self serving.
That's why many people give them crap. If they want more people to take them seriously they need to grow up. They can't just point out problems, they have to start coming up with solutions. Also those have to be real solutions, not "We should all go back to preindustrial society, never mind that 90%+ of humans have to die for that to happen." So long as they just hate on any real solution, people are going to keep ignoring them.
They are going to give 57% of the profits. 57% of the profit from selling property that they are saying ICANN should give them? They better give far, far more than that if they expect any sympathy.
Not to mention, this use is pretty idiotic. The TLD name should have some relation to what sites using it are actually for.
And much the same the other way, eh?
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
We can do this now.
Drop mail from anything @aol.com. It's a shotgun method for fixing the problem. As such there is collateral damage... but you won't miss the "RE:RE:RE:RE:urban myth" email from Aunt Sally, anyways.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Whois reports that steve.jobs is in fact held by Employ Media LLC, though they don't seem to have done anything with it.
However, I am happy to report that kitty.cat does resolve. ^_^
OK, what does professional wrestling have to do with green groups?
Al Gore invented the internet so he should get to say who gets dibs on the .eco domain. ;)
ImagePut - Free, Simple, Fast Image Hosting
that anti-globablist eco groups are trying to run a TLD on the internet?
I find it interesting how few of those people who say the world is overpopulated have offered to eliminate themselves and help solve the problem.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
We must stop this! Now!
My uncle Umberto would be very displeased!
He insists that this TLD be reserved for him!
If Tony King can do it, so can he!
He will protest to Wikipedia!
I call myself a greenie and have done since the 70's but I am also literate enough in science to understand that "green groups" are political movements and like all political movements pander to psuedo-science and spiritualisim to attract voters who have not aquired the skill of critical thinking and/or the knowledge base required to make that skill useful. Having said that - science can only tell you the options, it can't tell you how to choose wisely.
"anti-gaia-hypothesis"
Gaia gets a bad wrap, it is the victim of said spititual pandering (plus some deliberate anti-enviro conflation), Gaia is basically an alternate term for what we now call the biosphere. The author of the theory is James Lovelock who has been called the farther of Earth Science. Spiritualists picked up on the greek god reference and gave Gaia a "soul" and the Giai name fell into disrepute. Earth science went on to divide everything into overlapping spheres, biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, etc. Each sphere represents a planet wide system. The biosphere behaves LIKE an organisim in the same way an entire ants nest can be considered to behave LIKE an organisim. This does not imply either the ants nest or the biosphere IS an organisim/god.
BTW: Lovelock was also founding member of GreenPeace but like the other scientifically literate founders he resigned long ago. He also made headlines a few years ago for a wonderfull rant contradicting greenpeace's no-nuke policy.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Well, nice troll, but can you work the illuminati into it next time, how can I be expected to believe a conspiracy theory if there's no illuminati?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.