ICANN To Allow .brandname Top-Level Domains

AndyAndyAndyAndy sends in this excerpt from a Reuters report: "Brand owners will soon be able to operate their own parts of the Web — such as .apple, .coke or .marlboro — if the biggest shake-up yet in how Internet domains are awarded is approved. After years of preparation and wrangling, ICANN, the body that coordinates Internet names, is expected to approve the move at a special board meeting in Singapore on Monday. ... The move is seen as a big opportunity for brands to gain more control over their online presence and send visitors more directly to parts of their sites — and a danger for those who fail to take advantage."

Comments

That's a WONDERFUL idea

[idontgno]

Now Apple Computers, Apple Corp, and assorted apple grower associations can all go to legal war with each over who has the most right to the one, the only, the singular ".apple" vanity TLD.

Protip: Trademarks don't all share the same namespace, and only have to be unique within a general field of commercial endeavor.

Monetization of what should be neutral

[improfane]

The internet is damaged by commercial interests. I don't think I'm speaking from nostalgia about 'the good old days' but large commercial interests have only weakened the utility of the internet.

The top level domains should be neutral. The internet is no longer neutral if every company can buy out the namespace.

I envy biological scientists and ecologists with their highly organized binomial classification systems. They're neutral. They organize information how it should be organized.

I reckon we have difficulty classifying and namespacing the internet is because we don't really know what it is. I guarantee that the information architecture will have at least one massive restructuring in our lifetimes. One day it will be called something different, like 'the link' or the 'exchange'. You know the 'omniscient' like information system that you see alien races mention in Star Trek.

Re:This changes or improves NOTHING

[John.P.Jones]

Now companies have to be thinking about unlimited TLDs, not just a handful.

Due to the hierarchical nature of DNS, there is no difference between adding one more TLD and allowing any domain as a TLD (. vs .com).

I propose registering '.sucks' and then mirroring all of DNS inside it so resolving icann.org.sucks resolves to icann's website. Extra props for doing so recursively so that so does icann.org.sucks.sucks.sucks.

This could be FUN!

[thedarb]

Dear ICANN,

I'd like to register my company domains, we are Local Domain, Inc. Our leading product is our LocalHost operating system. Please register to us:

localdomain
localhost.localdomain

Thank you,
Root User of Local Domain

Re:Funny That

[Rei]

There's a HUGE glaring hole with this notion. As someone who's filed for a trademark before, trademarks are only limited within a particular field of business. So, for example, you could have a car company named Shiny, a spatula manufacturer named Shiny, a metal alloy named Shiny, whatever.

But there's only one TLD.

So, not only is this messing over individuals, but it's *really* messing over smaller businesses or businesses who came later to the game -- even if they hold a legitimate trademark on that name. I own a small software company that happens to have the same name as a larger, established trucking company. This could happen to me.

(Oh, and if your answer to anyone is, "Just pick another name"... do you have any clue how thoroughly picked through the trademark filings are? The Futurama "popplers" joke about there only being two product names in existence left untrademarked isn't that far off. Oh, and if you use a foreign word, you have to not overlap on both the foreign word *and* its translation)

Re:Do TLDs and Urls actually matter to users?

[hedwards]

That's stupid, they should be using the "I'm feeling lucky" button.