ICANN's Brand-Named Internet Suffix Application Deadline Looms

AIFEX writes with a snippet from the BBC: "'Organisations wishing to buy web addresses ending in their brand names have until the end of Thursday to submit applications. For example, drinks giant Pepsi can apply for .pepsi, .gatorade or .tropicana as an alternative to existing suffixes such as .org or .com.'" Asks AIFEX: "Does anyone else think this is absolutely ridiculous and defeats the logical hierarchy of current URLs?"

Comments

STOP PRESS! Deadline Extended

[judgecorp]

ICANN has taken the application system offline after a fault, and will extend the deadline till Friday 20 April. Details here
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/internetimageoverload-287x331.jpg

Re:Seems commercial...

[Megane]

For example, at my previous company, inside the local intranet I could type 'bugzilla' in the URL bar and it would resolve to the bugzilla of our company. It's really convenient. And now this sort of system will be impossible because it might conflict with the .wiki domain name space.

Seems like someone has never heard of default domains and doesn't understand how domain name lookups work from the client side.

Re:If bullshit sells

[eisonlyme]

What is wrong with selling something if a customer or person likes it?
It's just an address, although I find it similar to a customised number plate, nobody really cares. Not sure about the rest of people on /. so I'll pose this question:
How often to you manually type a web address like this?

I know that I don't, it is usually copied and pasted, linked in an email, linked from another site or I get automatically redirected. If brands officially register a .brand address then at least I know the website I'm visiting is legit.