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System For Applications For New gTLDs Still Down
itwbennett writes "After almost a week the ICANN system for applications for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) is still down, and it is unclear when it will reopen, although ICANN said it would provide an update by Friday, according to an IDG News Service report. The system was taken offline after a software glitch was found that 'resulted in some users being able to see some other users' file names and user names.'"
The #1 priority for ICANN is "stability of the global internet"
Need Mercedes parts ?
ICANN kept introducing new gTLDs that it alleged the world needed, when all those new gTLDs did was create confusion for the general population and liability for corporations and organizations that felt pressured to race to "buy" their name again with the latest gTLD ending to "protect" their image. It was a money grab on their part. Simply shameful. Now the system through which this nonsense was created is down?
I wouldn't call that broken. I'd call it "fixed." Glad they finally got around to it.
Someone could go on Kickstarter and raise some money for an open source project to do it for them. They could hand out tee-shirts saying "I helped fix the Internet".
Why is Snark Required?
The new system they're proposing of handing out arbitrary branded TLDs is a joke. It's a slap in the face of internet architecture. One of the DNS's most defining and useful properties is that it's a hierarchical system with meaning. The ccTLDs we have today make sense. The historical com/net/org/mil TLDs work. I'm even somewhat ok with the addition of some of the newer gTLDs that have a fixed, broad, categorical meaning that will contain lots of independent subdomains (e.g. ".xxx").
But the very idea of ".pepsi" and ".mcdonalds" is just sad and stupid, and it's a clear fear-based money-grab on the part of those intimately involved in selling TLD/DNS services, all of whom are in bed with each other and the ICANN. ICANN, get your heads out of your asses!