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Dotless Domain Names Prohibited, ICANN Tells Google

Posted by timothy on from the use-unicode's-invisible-dot-instead dept.

New submitter gwstuff writes "Last year, Google filed applications for about 100 top level domains. These included .app, .cloud and .lol, but perhaps most prominently .search, which they had requested to operate as a 'dotless' domain. [Friday], ICANN gave their verdict on the idea that would make this URL valid : NO. Here is the formal announcement, and a related Slashdot story from last year. So that's that. But it may still be granted the rights for the remaining 100. Is prime dot-com real estate going to become a thing of the past?"

6 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. .com is still king by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    doesn't matter what other TLDs are announced. .com is still king for consumers, anything else is a just a toy for the nerdy.

    1. Re:.com is still king by alphatel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      doesn't matter what other TLDs are announced. .com is still king for consumers, anything else is a just a toy for the nerdy.

      Your statement is correct but a bit too understated. I would add the following

      It is very hard to get people to switch. Even the new internet generation that has no particular preference for .com or .other are hard won when trying to get them to change their defaults. If you tell someone to go to a website they either search, or type in the name and add .com (and an immense number of searchers type the .com part of the domain into the search box too).

      Everyone knows you could have another extension but it's not their first choice. .ME and .CO were probably two of the biggest recent TLD launches. You can still pick up a premium in either of these extensions for micro-pennies on the .com dollar, registrations are still less than .1 % of total .com, and the US by far outregisters more domains in all extensions than all other countries combined.

      Lastly, consider that ICANN is definitely the most inept entity in existence. As long as they keep the US Govt happy, they will always continue to run the rest of their org as a stupendous dung heap. This whole game of rolling out new TLDs will take them at least 5 years, and that's not counting all the supreme screwups that are sure to make the process less and less tasteful for those inside and outside the market.

      Given these factors, I would say that .com will be king, for 20 years at least. Yes you can launch "help.apple" or "game.app" and get some traction, but anything less than the uber-premium word is going to have much less draw for an exceptionally long time. If nothing else but due to the way US consumers are trained en masse. You need to start a whole new brainwashing program to rewire people and I don't see anyone coughing up a few billion for that ad campaign anytime soon.

      --
      When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
    2. Re:.com is still king by Lincolnshire+Poacher · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can't remember the last time I entered a URL manually. What is this, 1994?

      Err, how about the first time you visit your bank's Online Banking subsite?

      You know the way they tell you in the introductory letter to enter the URL manually and as written in the letter? There is a reason for that.

      Just a shame they don't print the signature of their SSL cert in the letter, too.

  2. Whats the point by rossdee · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Most of the new devices connecting to the internet these days don't have a keyboard, who's gonna type in a URL anyway.

  3. How about just using the dot? by LoneTech · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Dotless names are used for local hosts (and frequently other shortcuts, like ssh aliases). Many systems use the dot to decide whether to do a global DNS lookup; if there aren't enough dots in there, the local domain gets appended. It's a lot like pathnames with the slash separator, where slash in front makes it an absolute path. What most people don't realise is that there are absolute DNS names too, which end with a period. If someone were to register the "search" top level domain, the URL would look like "http://search." Including the period. On /. of all places, this ought to be known.

  4. hrm. by berchca · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It strikes me as ironic that the company who has marginalized domain names is trying to hoard a bunch of TLDs.

    (I mean, do you ever type in 'thingiwant.com,' or do you just toss 'thing I want' in the Google bar?)