Hundreds of New TLDs Coming — Question Is When

netbuzz writes "A controversial plan to introduce hundreds of new top-level domains could be headed for the fast track to implementation or something more akin to the back burner, depending on what ICANN makes of public comments due to close at the end of this month. At most immediate issue is whether the process of granting these new TLDs will feature a pre-registration process that proponents say is necessary to accurately gauge the depth of interest and skeptics fear as moving too fast too soon. Says one critic: 'In effect, it's like ICANN saying we don't know what route this race is going to take or the shape of the track, but we're going to fire the starting gun anyway.'"

Comments

fatboy slim be happy

[ionix5891]

slash.dot

Re:fatboy slim be happy

[Professor_UNIX]

I remember the good old days back around 1998 when people used to bitch about Slashdot using the .org TLD when they should have been a .com because they were commercial and had advertising. Now the Internet is going to be totally fucked and non-hierarchical. This plan must have been approved by the same kind of people that see no problem injecting /29 subnets into the global BGP routing tables.

Bluring the lines

[sakdoctor]

That's just going to blur the lines between TLD, domains and subdomains.

http://sport.sport.sport/
Without the protocol, I'm not going to parse that as a URL at all.

Re:Bluring the lines

[Philip_the_physicist]

Agreed. IM(NS)HO, it would be better if the only gTLDs were .arpa, .tel, and .int. .eu should be deprecated as it isn't a country, and EU sites belong under eu.int. .gov and .mil should be under .us, and so probably should all the other gTLDs, except .cat (I have no idea what to do with that). For the other gTLDs, there should be the option of free transfer to the corresponding .us domain, and a ban on any further registrations of transferrals of ownership, so that they die out.

In this way, local prejudices, customs, and taboos can be respected by the registrar, without all the arguments over .xxx and so on.

Re:Bluring the lines

[blackest_k]

.eu has some value since its a common trade area.

I can buy from any where within the eu without being charged import duty or VAT. unlike buying from an american site or asian ect.

 

purpose ?

[Tom]

To me, the major issue appears to be that ICANN doesn't have a clear vision on what the purpose of TLD is.

In the past, we had two types of TLDs: One for geographical/political designation (country TLDs) and one for organisation-type designation (.com/.net/.org/.mil/.edu).

The ones they added, and which I think everyone agrees were utterly stupid, are a mix of lobby-dumbness and content designation (.info, .pro, .aero)

What we need is a clear view on what the meaning of the TLD should be. But since we don't get that, because ICANN doesn't have a vision at all, we'll end up with a mess of crap, no matter which way they turn.

Re:purpose ?

[Antique Geekmeister]

I'm forced to disagree with your thoughtful comment. They know quite well what the _purpose_ was, and what it can be. What they're confused about is how to make money off of it. ICANN is funed, primarily, by registrars. But the opportunity to open up new revenue by selling off additional, duplicate hostnames in multiple domains is apparently irrestible, and they seem unwilling to take responsibility for managing the dominant ".com" domain properly. So they're delegating responsibility for it, and intend to collect the revenue from the top-level domain owners.

There are technological and social reasons to want more domains, but I'm afraid they're swamped by the potential for expanding the revenue stream.

Re:purpose ?

[AndroSyn]

What counts as porno? What is considered tame in Western culture might be considered pornographic in Saudi Arabia for example.

The original summary from the article.

[stephanruby]

The original summary reads as follows:

A controversial plan to introduce hundreds of new top-level domains into the Internet has reached a crossroads: The plan will either be accelerated or delayed based on public comments due at the end of January.

I'm glad that here at Slashdot, we have submitters/editors that dumb down the original summaries for us.

Re:Dumb, Again

[stephanruby]

Reduce the price of maintaining a domain name, and it's only going to increase the instances of domain-squatting.

Long overdue

[Low Ranked Craig]

The only reason that .com was so popular was due to marketing; practically no one in meatspace knows what .com even means. It's just a freaking address for Christ's sake. We need a metric shit ton of new TLDs so that we can get away from "premium" TLDs. It's a lot like when they rolled out 888 and 877 toll-free numbers; 800 numbers commanded a premium, due to marketing. it's a just a phone number, if your customers can find you who cares? Besides, do you really want a customer that is ignorant enough not to call you or visit your site because you don't have an 800 number or a .com domain? I do have a number of .com domains, but I really wish the importance of the TLDs would diminish.

Oh, and fuck domain squaters.

Re:Long overdue

[bingoUV]

But stupid customers are so easy to part from their money. Companies can't just resist loving stupid customers.

Scarcity / Squatters

[chapstercni]

Several things imo.

As websites increase in number, the typical need for more unique domains increase. If a significant number of unique names are all tried to pull from a small number of TLD's, this makes it more difficult to find an available name that fits what you are trying to do. A substantial number of domains are tied up because of the squatters.

If the REAL cost was ten bucks a year or so to keep a domain, the squatting would go down. Remember when .com was $50.00 a year? The really juicy names would still be squatted on. With business.com selling for how many millions?

If a lot of new .TLD's are opened up, then it will be easy for you to get a domain you want. Say, bobspizza.newtld. If there is a real baseline of cost that makes it unlikely that people will squat on these new domains, then they will be available for business/people/organizations to use. However, .com is STILL the king of domains, and is what people want. But increase the supply say with 100 new TLD's (or more), and the impact of .com will be lessened, and the cost of squatting will become just too much.

I've noticed that organizations and businesses are using facebook/wordpress for websites a lot nowadays. With no TLD at all.

Will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Re:Scarcity / Squatters

[dnsdude]

I've noticed that organizations and businesses are using facebook/wordpress for websites a lot nowadays. With no TLD at all.

Uh, I'm pretty sure both Wordpress.com and Facebook.com end in the TLD .com. Which is entirely the point.

The title *should* read...

[epp_b]

ICANN proposes hundreds of new TLDs for cash-grab.

From TFA:

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is seeking feedback on a proposal to create a pre-registration process for organizations that want to apply for new domain name extensions, such as .jazz, .sport and .food.

This is the same cash-grab proposal from a number of months ago where ICANN was considering offering custom TLDs to those with big enough pockets (ie.: .coke, .ford, .msoft, etc.). This is really not how the domain name system as a whole should work. We can't have creative new domain possibilities opened up only for a select few rich and famous. I'm not saying that they should be selling custom TLDs to anyone who wants one (although that shouldn't be a problem *), but simply continue to introduce generic TLDs that make sense (as quoted from the TFA).

* if someone registers .coke, how is that any different from someone registering cokewebsite.com? Either is a trademark issue with Coke and neither is for ICANN to deal with.

Down with the gTLD!

[transami]

I have a much better idea. Get rid of the gTLDs altogether. They are an arbitrary crutch to begin with. Without them we could have freeform domain names and end the silly quabbles over myname.everytldthereis.

What they are up to now looks more like damn money making scheme.

Dot Dot?

[synthmob]

We need a .DOT domain -- that'll confuse somebody....

Re:.con

[Professor_UNIX]

Oh it's just not .con, they want to let you use any unicode characters in the domains so you'll essentially have characters that look exactly like ".com", but they're different unicode characters. THAT will be when the phishing gets nasty if someone slips something like that through.

Further reducing ICANN's credibility?

[grantdh]

This could have a fascinating result:

1) Organisations sign up to host their own "so cool" root domain, expecting that lots of companies will be "forced" to register their key words in the new root domain

2) Companies finally wake up and say "WTF? We don't need this shit" and don't buy in

3) Lots of organisations who did #1 realise they're not going to be able to make enough to pay ICANN let alone cover their costs

4) Scumbuckets come in and start domain-squatting, setting up crap sites, etc

The above may well lead to:

5) People stop trusting domains and use search engines more (it's happening more & more now anyhow - most people can't remember even simple domains and use search engines to find them)

6) More legal cases for domain-squatting and illegal use of registered trademarks/keywords/etc

7) No more "gold rush" mentality for the opening up of new TLDs

8) Bad press for ICANN and fewer groups willing to take part in the next "all new territory" TLD funding drive (leads to less $$$ for ICANN)

Yeah, I'm just dreaming. ICANN is rapidly joining the RIAA & MPAA as a prime example of a bloated, self-serving organisation that's doing all it can to hang onto a way of existance that's no longer viable :(