Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
News

Care to Register Your Own TLD? 167

Posted by timothy from the just-wait-for-the-ueber-domains dept.
luap writes: "MSNBC is running this article about a Top Level Domain proposal by the Consumer Project for Technology to add the TLDs ".sucks," ".unions," ".consumers," ".complaints," ".ecology," ".isnotgreen," ".isnotfair," ".shareholder," ".taxpayer" and ".unite." Where are ".rules," ".isaloser," etc..?"

More TDLs are certainly overdue -- but ".isnotfair" and ".isnotgreen"? How about ".fam" for family? What new TDLs would make most sense? Would officializing ".sucks" do anything besides lead to companies buying additional domain names to sit on? These questions will do nothing but hover until ICANN acts on this or other TLD-loosening proposals, which so far it has been reluctant to do.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Care to Register Your Own TLD? More

Care to Register Your Own TLD?

Comments Filter:

  • i hereby claim www.jonkatz.sucks! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    it's mine, all mine!
  • I'm gatheric 10 billion VC to offer ".bork.bork.bork" to the masses.

    Wouldn't that be cool: john.doe.bork.bork.bork? Just think how street credible you would be!

    This message brought to you by Stun Microsystems - We're the bork.bork.bork in the dot bork dot bork dot bork.
  • Domain squatters and /. first posters really have a lot in common. A .first TLD would specifically designate a namespace for people who brag about being the first one to think of a domain. So you could have domains like

    coollinuxstuff.first
    buy-this-domain-for-20000-dollars.first
    slutty-sex-dolls.first

    ...and so on.

    This could lead to some interesting "dialogue."

    --

  • Correct, nobody DOES care about the guidelines. Which is why I'd like to bring up my proposal, which is the complete deregulation of TLDs. Keep the current system so that .edu, .gov, .mil and the country codes remain avaliable only to the organizations they were designed for, but allow everyone else to register anything as a TLD. I could own chameleon.chameleon, whereas someone else could own linux.chameleon. The only possible restriction would be the length of the TLD, but that's a minor issue. I don't see any reason why this proposal couldn't go ahead immediately.
    -- Chris Dunham
    http://www.chamdex.com
  • ... your C server would be a lot busier (serving .com) than your Z server.
    Yes, and? I think you're assuming that all 36 servers would be the exact same and have the same bandwidth capacity. That wouldn't be a terribly great idea, because of the problems you cited. So, what do you do? How about making the busier servers faster and increasing their capacity? :-)
    -- Chris Dunham
    http://www.chamdex.com
  • Amen. I see no reason whatsoever why this should not and COULD not be done. Sure, it couldn't happen overnight, but it could happen very quickly. Even NSI has no reason to oppose this. (Weird, eh?)
    -- Chris Dunham
    http://www.chamdex.com
  • With ideas like the above one the concept of toplevel-domains is driven to a state which is meaningless.
    What is the REAL difference now between domains and toplevel-domains ? I mean that once upon a time .com means commercial, .org means non-comercial and so on. That type of difference is the only one wich matters for a user. I mean that for a user hondasucks.org does not differ to honda.sucks in any meaningful way.

    I have another suggestion: There should be only four (plus country-domains) toplevel-domains: .c (for commercial), .o (for REAL non-commercial), .p (for a real person, must not be an organisation, company or whatsoever non-personal entity), .i (for international governement-like organisations like UN which cannot be under a country-domain).

    .c could be a person, a company, an organisation or whatever which is in a commercial purpose.

    .o could be whatever as for .c but ONLY in a non-commercial purpose and action.

    .p must NOT be anything than a real person but could be used for whatever commercial or non-commercial purpose as long as all communication to and responsibility for that domain is connected to this person. The name of this domain should be the real name of the person, or else NOT a name of some other person.

    .i must not be responsible to, or under the law of a specifik country.

    The rest of the domains could be archived.. :-)

    Thomas Berg
  • .sux and .kewl
  • Hmmm...

    echo Surprise! | mail me@foo

    just so happens to try to send to a host named "foo." first, then appends the system's notion of my local domain name. I guess that's why they force all host name registrations to contain two levels, otherwise there would be software chaos...

  • com.sucks

    amazon.com.sucks
    etc.

    ---
    Joseph Foley
    Akamai Technologies
  • Regarding .sucks & Co: aren't the vast majority of these more suitable as .orgs? (And hey, if you allow me to get a tad revolutionary, wouldn't the world be a better place if three-letter TLDs were reserved for sites international in nature, with more regional companies [texaschristmastrees.com] instead being in the .us domain.
    Not that it is possible now, but perhaps in the next revision of the internet. :)
  • Perhaps the powers-that-be should revisit that now. :)

    I don't know if it's a rule, or a 'guideline', but .orgs are not supposed to be profit-making entities. Anyone *know* for sure?

    Now that /. is OWNED by a profit making entity, and displays advertisements (for a fee)... Well, it's only right to play by the rules of the community that one seeks to represent/cater to.
  • Nothing fundamental would change. The first domains to be registered under .sucks would of course be she.sucks, teen.sucks, goat.sucks, pamela.sucks, and the new fantasy site, tux.sucks.
  • The same way any other law is, by armed agents of the state. (Duh.) You might recall how, near the start of .com mania, they busted people who tried to register things like mcdonalds.com; I see no problem in busting McDonalds is they try to register mcdonalds.sucks. OTOH, there's already mcspotlight.org.

    Yeah, but McDonalds can afford expensive lawyers to do the suing. Who'd bring the case against McDonalds? Or, in an easy loophole, mcdonalds.sucks could easily be registered to the CEO of McDonalds, or his wife or brother-in-law or however far away you'd legally need to get while still being effectively under the control of the company. I generally support most of what Nader says, but this idea is just plain stupid. Why not just have one website www.evil-cos.org and offer free space to advocacy groups, so you could have www.evil-cos.org/mcdonalds/ and www.evil-cos.org/kathielee/ and whatever else.

  • wouldn't the world be a better place if three-letter TLDs were reserved for sites international in nature, with more regional companies instead being in the .us domain

    What if I start a store -- call it Mike's Widgets -- here in New York City. So my website is www.mikeswidgets.co.nyc.ny.us/ But then, my widgets are so popular and cool that I decide to open a new store in Westchester. I'd then move my website to www.mikeswidgets.co.ny.us/

    After a while selling widgets, I start to expand into Connecticut, New Jersey, and then open up a store or two in California, .... by this time, my website ought to be www.mikeswidgets.co.us/ But then a couple of Canadian tourists come to one of my stores and observe that they just can't find anything like my widgets back home. So, I think it'd be a good idea to open some a stores in Toronto, Montréal, ... By this point, I'm the McDonald's of the widget world, so I need some stores in Europe, and maybe a few in Asia, and ... you get the point, my website is now, by your standards, truly deserving of being called www.mikeswidgets.com/

    But, back when I was starting to open stores in California, someone saw the potential for worldwide widget sales before I did and snapped up the mikeswidgets.com domain. So, when my British friends try to buy a widget from me online, they see instead this person's website which says "Mike's Widgets Violates My Patents. Don't buy from them" or some other crap.

    I think there is a point hidden somewhere in this message. Free prize to the first person to find it!

  • And, of course:
    • the-easy-life.isNotGreen
    • when-I-have-a-cold.iSnotGreen
  • What the web needs is an influx of TLDs, true, but not ones this long.

    Besides that, what's up with .taxpayer? Yeah that's what I'd like behind my domain. .sucks will get used, but I can't see anyone registering with .isnotfair or .isnotgreen
  • Buying up names is the WRONG way to defend company names. However it is cheap sence there are so few domain names to buy up.
    All you have to do is buy up *.com *.org and *.net and you are relitivly safe... You may need to buy one in each nation for compleate protection but thats not a big deal.
    The correct tactic is to sue... Yes a lot of stupid lawsutes exist by any company who thinks it can bully someone around or anyone looking for a quick buck.
    But with lawsutes there is still a matter or right and wrong. You don't automaticly win.. you have to prove your case. The other side has a chance to challange you. So say a spoof site at www.microsoft.org... not gona happen as Microsoft probably owns it allready...
    With buying up domains you make sure NO ONE has it. There is no judge... no judgement... you have the domain...
    The most commen argument is really stupid anyway... You can ignore a cybersquater... He wants to sell you your name for what?? $2,000? $2,000,000? Dosn't matter... he dosn't own the name... If you can afford the domain you can afford a lawyer to send off one of those famous "polite letters" that basicly say "Cut it out or your TOAST"
    I'm all for this... the whole idea of buying up domains is repugnet to me anyway.. it encurages cybersquatting... says it's lagit.. when it's not. While companys who are not yet on-line get there domains bought up.... www.NotYetOnTheNet.com comes on and finds the domain for sale for insain amounts of money... they can fork it over or sue... The more companys that sue the fewer people will attempt this scam...
  • Seems like what your idea really maps to is a "null" TLD. Name servers would have to look at "apple.records" or "joe.apple",recognize them as "apple.records.null" and ""joe.apple.null", and query one of the the null root server. So we run right back into the hierarchical nature of the DNS: who owns (i.e., is responsible for name service for) records.null, or apple.null?

    I wish I could remember who said this a while ago, but the best solution I heard about the DNS lookup was for the root servers to each handle one letter, the first letter of the TLD. Under such a system, all traffic for .com, .cool, .ca, and so on, would be directed to the "C" server for resolution.

    --

  • how about a TLD for jane citizen who isn't part of the network infrastructure, a governmental agency, commercial entity, educational institution, non-profit organization, or a branch of the military? I'd like to see someithing like .pri or .pub for private individuals.
  • Well there's already georgewbushsucks.com and the likes :)
  • The problem is namespace collision. Now, while adding new TLDs can be said to make the namespace larger, riddle me this: when was the last time you saw a startup register just a .com, and not a .net or an .org? Furthermore, how many alternative TLD vendors (such as .to and .cx) stress wordmark-defense in their online promotional material? They all have literature that says "You've got the .com, .net and .org, but do you have the .blah domain under your control? If you don't, you're just asking for it, buddy!"

    With that kind of attitude, adding TLDs simply isn't going to help--the same company who registered foo.com is going to register foo.web. And if someone else gets it first, it's still going to do nothing but cause confusion. Do I want to visit newcars.com, newcars.web or newcars.sex? If I can hardly remember the name 'newcars' when I see it on the TV screen, how am I, Joe Q. Consumer, supposed to remember the TLD as well?

    I do advocate the addition of a few new TLDs: .web for entities that desire mainly a web presence, .nom for private citizens (perhaps with an arbitration/playing-nice policy to keep smith.nom from being dominated by one person) and .tm for domain names that are registered trademarks--domains to be claimed only by the holder of the trademark, of course!

    Aside from that, I would be delighted to see the .us domain opened to general use, with .com.us, .net.us and .org.us available. I would happily switch all my domains to .us in the name of uniform global DNS conventions.

  • Hmmm... (Score:1)

    by sec ( 20916 )
    kirby.sucks
    hoover.sucks
    filter-queen.sucks

    and, of course:

    electrolux.sucks

    ...because we all know, nothing sucks like an Electrolux! :)

    On a different note, why not register really.sucks, then sell subdomains?
  • http://www.guug.de/ [www.guug.de]

    http://yahoo.ca/ [yahoo.ca]

    Since these are both valid domain names, I suspect that even if the above scheme was ever postulated, it was treated with the neglect that it deserves.
  • And of course, if we can corral all the porn sites to the .xxx domain, they'd be both easier to find and to filter.

    I've always thought that the domain for pr0n should be more accurately named ".cum"... ^_^

    And while I'm at it... how about...

    • .aol for "them" ("And stay out!11!11")
    • .dotcom for certain companies
    • .exe for warez
    • .1337 for $Cr1p7 |<1dd13$
    • .dot.dot.dot for ellipses
    • .~1 for long URLs
    • .404 for error pages
    • etc...

    Okay, I'll quit rambling now...

    np: Two Lone Swordsmen - It Hits (A Virus With Shoes)


    As always under permanent deconstruction.

  • Now I can register that all important domain that everyone who watches Saturday Night Live on a regular basis needs to have:

    clownpenis.fart
  • I came up with this years ago, and it's up and running (though not on many ISPs)...

    Here's the info [jerky.net]
  • The registration page [jerky.net]

    This alternate TLD stuff has been around for a long time
  • .sux is already in practice.

    It was originally a joke just as above. It was originally going to be a 'fsck the man' sort of thing where individuals could register for low $$ and corporations would have to pay big $$ for their .sux domain. Then we figured there's already a word for that, extortion, so we dropped the idea. We kept the TLD though, and domains can be registered here [jerky.net]

    It's still mostly a joke
  • Is it just me, or did they change the title too? I though it was something like "Who wants to register www.gates.sucks" After I submitted my first comment, I saw the new article title.
  • Bring the US into line with just about everywhere else by giving it its own TLD. It opens up a host of possibilities in the .co.us etc. domains, and leaves .com etc. for international organisations.
  • I'm sure ICANN considered such things, and I'm sure they realized they have to take great care in creating new TLDs.

    This proposal shows a certain mindset. Mr. Love didn't suggest any .love or .like, nor .support, .repair, or .meeting. There's also no .heaven or .limbo, much less .karma. Also no .facts, .analysis, .news, and .truth. (I can see uses for all those TLDs, as well as the multiple meanings in my phrasing)


  • Useful for mp3 search engines.
  • These domains are available now at Name.Space [namespace.org] Go ahead and register them.
  • It wouldn't break any spec. There has, in fact, been a .ARPA for inverse domain resolution for as long as there has been DNS. Nowhere is there any such restriction on TLD length... The only restriction is that the whole name has to be 255.
  • Except geographically, GB is different to UK. It's Great Britain and Northern Ireland, so if you want to push us back to GB you will need a Northern Ireland domain.
  • why not let everyone register their own GTLD (.bla) instead of bla.com.. well..
    that would only worsen the problem(even if it were sooooooo much cooler): all 1-3 letter GTLDs would be taken within days.

    makes me remember an old idea of myself:

    we could start an alternic like project.. but without having the participating nameservers use our ns's as forwarders, but instead let them include our domain (.open/.free?) by forwarding round-robin to a lot of root nameservers dedicated to the free domain space..

    im aware that dns causes a lot of traffic.. but when the traffic grows we could simply add more root nameservers for .open/.free.

    as for the security issue with having a lot of "not 100% trusted" nameservers: it's not thought for companies that may lose money when their dns entries are modified, but for people/npprojects that want a free domain.

    the concept has flaws, but with a good policy for giving out domain names for free and for adding new root servers, updates of the root server list etc.. it actually may work..

    hmm.. what do you think?
  • Why on earth to people submit things such as ".consumers" and ".unions" rather than ".consumer" and ".union". The extra "s" on the end is a complete waste of time typing. Is there really going to be a difference between ".union" and ".unions"? No. Think of how many people will type on extra "s" and how many times they will type it in their lifetime. It's ridiculous. Get rid of the plurals, people!
  • I thought that one has been needed for quite a while. Seems like every movie that comes out now has its own .com address. The .movie TLD would take away so much of that.
  • Oh, I dunno, there might be some use for:

    soylent.isnotgreen
    tom.isnotgreen
    red.isnotgreen
    themile.isnotgreen
    thepropercolortoweartoafuneral.isnotgreen
    goodkeylimepie.isnotgreen

    and so on :)

    Chuck.

  • Yes, clear chanel has used their money to buy their own TLD. Go to spot.cc for information/to register.
  • ahh ha ha...
  • And here I thought it was supposed to be a new iMac colour.

  • The thing that really makes this look like a joke is the inclusion of the .iSnotGreen domain.

  • Man, now wouldnt that be great... A TLD named .XXX or .porn. You could get Squid to drop all connections from .porn sites !!! No more crummy banners or spam.

  • With the recent talk about filters in libraries , the idea struck me that a new TLD would make it very easy to filter this stuff out, as the article also mentions. This would elliminate the problem of wrongly blocked sites because unless you are selling porn, then nobody would ever want a URL that ends in .sex.

    There would still be many sites that wouldn't comply, but that will always be the case no matter what laws or policies are implemented. Consider your local video store: it sells Wallace and Gromit and other childrens videos but there is also a room in the back that sells the porn flicks. Libraries and schools could simply block *.sex. This wouldn't keep out all "offensive material" but a great deal of it. I would be happy then also because innocent sites wouldn't be blocked. I think this is a reasonable compromise.

  • I'm sure it's supposed to be read as .IsNotGreen
  • Just think about it, how can you increase the amount of money people spend to register domain names?

    You could increase the cost of a domain name but there's now competition so prices should stay as low as possible to remain competitive.

    The other would be to increase the number of domain names a person would want to buy.

    Now, instead of MS needing to buy up .com, .net & .org, they'll feel the corporate need to get .sucks, .blows, .xxx, .sex, .etc! Suddenly, there's a *lot* more domains that these people will be buying just for preventative purposes, etc.

    Now if that isn't a get rich quick scheme...

    -Vel

    P.S. Sorry for all the FUD. :)
  • I think the "sucks" term needs to be rethought. It is high time we stopped denigrating those persons and things that suck. Anyone who has been the benificiary of such an activity will know it is a Good Thing(tm).
  • Open the floodgates. Allow *anything* to be used as a TLD, HOWEVER.... and this is what's important: All domain registrations *must* still consist of two parts, domain + TLD.
    Sorry, "root", but that won't work at all. That way every company would register www.company (like www.micros~1, www.apple, www.megami), which is a two part domain. Is this what you intended? I don't think so.
    - Stephan.
    --
    Carpe diem!
  • Good in theory.. but "force" is the wrong word to use. Most porn sites would not refuse to do so.(I am assuming....)
  • + Most governmental agencies already use a .us though don't they? (www.school.ok.k12.us) ?
  • let's let the public have a go at all the DNS servers and name tables (or start new ones) and create them... well, ok, even i don't want a part of that chaos. since DNS is almost fully arbitrary anyway, i imagine established sites getting the boot; never mind then. but what about .pub? what's wrong with that? why can't all nakedness and porn domains get .xxx?

    having mentioned the arbitrary point, i find it reasonable to have NSI or someone approve a name (and charge $, i guess) for anything. a governing body could take a 1 minute application for something like micro.soft or ski.nny and there would be an impossibly large number of names available. no more griping about profit dealers holding names because you could more likely come up with something not too bad yourself. slash.dot and www.slash.dot would have to be handled seperately with the NS organization, but NS information is already done this way for any level of name service. in other words, each name would be it's own domain and not allow other levels. if you need more than one level on your domain, you're big enough for the $small most likely. with your application, you can still check the education box if that applied to you. there are very few technical problems with it. NSI or whoever could remove the .net/org/com requirement easy enough on their request form and make gobs of cash in $70 chunks. i'm rambling, tired and late for work.
  • The San Diego radio station 101KGB is owned by Clear Channel.

    They used to tout their website as '101kgb.com', but now they're always saying '101kgb.cc'. Both work

  • The San Diego radio station 101KGB is owned by Clear Channel. They used to tout their website as '101kgb.com', but now they're always saying '101kgb.cc'. Both work
  • just thought I'd correct that.
  • TLDs.with.more.than.three.letters.sux

    :)
  • I like the idea of .nakedandstoned as a TLD.
    • natalie.portman.nakedandstoned
    • ive-got-pics-of.yourmom.nakedandstoned
    • dont.think.about.margaret.thatcher.nakedandstone d

    etc.
  • The whole idea of TLD:s will vanish if we get too many of them. Keep them short, few and carefully selected!
  • but what about profanity and vulgarity? Think of the children! OH, WHY won't anyone PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?! Ooh!
  • Perhaps you are thinking of TINC, The Internet Namespace Cooperative. (Forgive me if that title is wrong...)
    It is located at http://www.tinc-org.com/ [tinc-org.com]

    I own the .mnet. TLD within the TINC.
  • I hereby reserve the following domains:

    - monicalewinsky.sucks
    - webfilteringsoftware.sucks
    - twopartypolitics.sucks

    and, for the easy ransom booty as proved by history,

    - georgewbush.sucks
    - georgebush.sucks
    - whinytexasgovernor.sucks

    and of course, for my own peace of mind,

    - theswindle.sucks

    waiting to see the utterly absurd yet inevitable tidal wave of legal actions such a proposal, if implemented would cause, such as:

    - microsoft.sucks
    - celinedion.sucks
    - kathieleegifford.sucks

  • electrolux.sucks

    You obviously haven't been around the net that long, otherwise you'd know the truth. Vax sucks.

  • So what, technically, is there preventing me from putting a DNS server on the internet, and encouraging others to add it to their list of DNS servers (after their regular servers, that way I'm not taking over any domains). I could add any TLD I like, and I could probably convince quite a crowd to add my server. I understand this has been tried before, did it die out because of lack of use?

    Your plan would work except for the after their regular servers bit. If a resolver receives a "domain doesn't exist" response, it will not query any additional nameservers. What you can do, though, is to completely take over the root zone, and simply delegate the existing TLD's to their appropriate authorative servers.


    --
  • .cc is the TLD for the Cocos and Keeling islands. You can register a domain within .cc just like any other; check out nic.cc [www.nic.cc] for details. It's currently $100 for two years, though.

    The .cc TLD doesn't appear to be anything to do with Clear Channel, though (funnily enough) the clearchannel.cc [clearchannel.cc] domain exists...

  • ...they're not dumb enough to even seriously consider this.

    With this and the MS story, I think the leap-year problem turned out to maee people think yesterday that it's the 1st of April, not March. ;)

  • What really should be done is not expand the top level domains, but contract them. The existing .com, .org, .gov, .mil, .net, and .edu domains should be moved under the .us domain. Then the domain rules become a matter for each country to decide.

    Even if we are keeping generic TLDs, we should at least move .gov and .mil under .us, as they are clearly United States domains.
  • Can't wait for the chance to register a domain in the .longtopleveldomainnameswillcausecarpaltunnelandth eniwillsuethatassholenader TLD.
    -Shoeboy
  • the best solution I heard about the DNS lookup was for the root servers to each handle one letter, the first letter of the TLD. Under such a system, all traffic for .com, .cool, .ca, and so on, would be directed to the "C" server for resolution.

    If a separate root server was used for each letter of the alphabet, then your Z server would be a lot busier (serving .com) than your Z server. Even if there were freeform TLDs, the names would not be evenly distributed over the alphabet.

  • ... your C server would be a lot busier (serving .com) than your Z server.
  • I have two technical issues with this proposal.
    • There standards issues with these proposed TLD's (all others are either 3 or 2 letters.)
    • They are way overly specific.
    We all know that the domain namespace is artifically scarse and that new TLD's are needed, but let's start with proposals that create a more robust TLD. .fam is good. So is .web, .biz, .xxx, .sex. Maybe even .per for personal sites, or .pol for political ones, or a hundred others. The sentiment that a company "is not green" should be in the domain, not the TLD.

    Additionaly, there is the social issue of their incredible arrogance. It galls me. James Love, the director of the CPT tells Christopher Ambler who has been trying to get .web TLD'ized for four years:

    "What's his point? That he has squatter's rights for applying for top level domain? He just wants to make a lot of money for it."
    Oh, I see...you've got Ralph Presidential Candidate Nader on your side so your proposal should move to the top of the list despite being patently stupid? Can Nader alone part the seas of Red Tape that is the ICANN process? Get in line.

    Love and Nader...you're newbies in the worst way.

  • Congratulations. You have successfully proposed moving "www" from the front of the namespace to the end of it. What does this accomplish?

    The fact that .net .com .org are starting to merge is due to the fact that no one paid attention to the guidlines. Plain and simple.
  • We've had the .com landgrab. Now watch out for the TLD landgrab. Everybody will want to own their own TLD, especially if they can charge every megacorp $50 to prevent someone else setting up www.megacorp.sucks, .evil, .blows, .lousy, .stupid, .hateit, .dumb, .cretin, .broken, .costalot, .tacky, ... Paul.
  • Keep in mind that Russian is adopting English words at a furious pace in matters of business and technology, so having a bald English word wouldn't pose too much of a problem as people would just accept it and deal with it. And don't forget the incredible influence French had on the language before this century.

    With that in mind, some of the current tlds wouldn't pose much of a problem unmodified. .COM maps well onto "kommercheskii", .ORG maps onto "organizatsia", and .MIL maps onto "militsia" (technically police, but it's close enough).

    .NET is a problem, since "nyet" of course means "no". The word for network is "sjet'".

    .EDU is hopeless. As is .GOV, since the root "gov" refers to speaking, not to anything related to government.

    But again, these problems are nonissues. If you check out some .ru domains, you'll see them use "www" and "sex" and and all the usual sorts of naming conventions.
  • I don't think that '.sucks' is a good idea. Using 'sucks' as the highest/lowest insult is juvenile, childish, vulgar and all the rest. I'm certainly guilty of using it myself, but as the old saying goes, "Profanity is the linguistic crutch of the inarticulate."

    And ".isnotgreen" has its fullest impact only on those with particular political mindset. I'm sure someone would register Kermit the Frog under that :)

    But there surely is a good reason for some new TLDs. For instance, the proposals (now aging in casks in France) to have a domain ".xxx" makes a lot of sense -- if sexually explicit content were categorized under .xxx, it would be easier to block for those who want to block it, and easier to find for those who *don't* want to block it.

    ".fam" looks like a good idea to me, too -- and I bet it would to the (millions?) of families who use e-mail to keep in contact and the Web to send photos to the distant relatives. I'm in line for "lord.fam" :)

    Just thoughts,

    timothy
  • And how difficult would it be for servers to implement on a technical level? I see it as no worse than the .com subdomain is already being successfully handled (for now, inagine as *.com with the .com simply dropped).
    Seems like what your idea really maps to is a "null" TLD. Name servers would have to look at "apple.records" or "joe.apple",recognize them as "apple.records.null" and ""joe.apple.null", and query one of the the null root server. So we run right back into the hierarchical nature of the DNS: who owns (i.e., is responsible for name service for) records.null, or apple.null?

    Sounds like you'd need to come up with a whole new name resolution paradigm - no easy task.

  • The article say that companies will be prohibited from registering their own names under such a domain, but how can that be enforced?
    The same way any other law is, by armed agents of the state. (Duh.) You might recall how, near the start of .com mania, they busted people who tried to register things like mcdonalds.com; I see no problem in busting McDonalds is they try to register mcdonalds.sucks. OTOH, there's already mcspotlight.org [mcspotlight.org].
    It goes against some very basic laws that give a company the right to control what happens to its name (a la eToys).
    The whole idea is to change those laws, and reserve space so that citizens can voice complaints about these companies.

    Is it necessary? I don't know. I'm certainly sympathetic to the general idea, but I think restriciting domain squatting, multiple TLD registration, and trademark abuse would be the better solution.

  • .us already exists. Try www.tac.nyc.ny.us [nyc.ny.us] for example. I believe that it's always xx.us where xx is the two-letter state abbreviation.

    Also, the UK should really use .gb to be in conformance with ISO 3166.
  • "GB" is the abbreviation for "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" according to ISO3166. That sounds like an oversight on their part to me, especially since "UK" is unassigned. But that's what the standard says.
  • So what, technically, is there preventing me from putting a DNS server on the internet, and encouraging others to add it to their list of DNS servers (after their regular servers, that way I'm not taking over any domains). I could add any TLD I like, and I could probably convince quite a crowd to add my server. I understand this has been tried before, did it die out because of lack of use?

    -Adam

    Every vision has a provision for revision
  • I dont think language really should be a problem. only 1 change: give each country 3 TLDs. 1 commercial, 1 for non-profit orgs, 1 general (or maybe another division could be better. I wouldn't know about that) You want to cater for the whole world, thenb you either have an english page, or have your page in several languages. If you want to keep working on a national basis, get your own country's commercial TLD. I however don't think the purpose should necessarily be clear from the URL. It's just an address, there to make it easier to remember. If you need an URL, you look it up somewhere, usually a searchengine. It's exactly the same as a normal address. If you need to find a baker, do you blindly walk over to bakerstreet in hopes of finding one, or do you look in the phonebook/yellow pages/whatever? Finally.. yes, there is a reason for TLDs only being 3 characters: people are lazy. .sucks is still decently fast to type, .isnotfair is quite a bit longer. The shorter your name, the cooler.

    //rdj
  • The article seems to indicate that the creation of such TLDs would "facilitate free speech and criticism and enable consumers, workers and others to organize." First of all I'm not taking this very seriously, secondly even if it were to be done I'd have some concerns.
    They don't seem to be planning to enforce that legitimate orgs are the ones buying domains with these TLDs, nor do I feel that they should. However I'm reminded of a news story I read a few years ago about how some large industrial companies had created funded small non profit organizations with names like "The Green Planet Alliance." Now this organization was actually chartered to work to reduce pollution and such noble ideas, however, since they were controlled by these other companies they mostly did lobbying for laws that favored the companies that had created them. These laws in most people's views either did not assist in reducing pollution or in fact left massive loopholes for the companies to pollute more. Sadly a few consumers got burned by this when the non profit organization actually started fund raising and they thought they were giving money to a legitimate organization.
    I worry that such TLDs make it more likely that people wishing to participate in such organizations may simply go to techworker.union join up and pay their dues. Then only later that the company they work for is actually running that organization.
  • A couple weeks ago a friend of mine who works for a subsidiary of Clear Channel communications told me that they were getting their own TLD, ".cc" I was pretty skeptical. He said he didn't really know anything about it other than that was information passed on to him from someone else at the company.

    I spoke to him earlier this morning, before seeing this article, and he said that he was told again that they intend to unveil their TLD. Clear Channel owns several tv stations, radio stations, and billboards. So is the .cc TLD for real, or just wishful thinking at this point?

    numb
  • The only thing I can think of using .sucks for is to provide satirists an easy way to be caught and busted to the full extent of the law for every copyrighted image and trademarked phrase/logo they use.

    With more and more top-level domains, companies will have to invest several grand just to be able to have a domain name that isn't the launching point for a million "these people suck" sites. Now, I think critical sites should still exist, but EVERY retailer on the net has something bad that can be said about them, if you started checking the .sucks version of the URL every time you went to a place, you'd probably never buy anything at all...

    Which would lead to a torrent of libel and defamation lawsuits... oh this smells all bad

    Esperandi

  • I think that whole issue is really stupid. I understand the need to protect trademarks, but come on! There are only so many words/phrases that make any sense without going over 25 characters - the point at which it starts getting too long to remember easily. I think there should be some enforcement about which domains you can take. Let Ford Motor Co. take ford.com, sure, but leave ford.net available for someone else that has a legitimate claim to the name, like Joe Ford who owns a networking company in Sandusky, OH.

    I think buying up your 2LD across every available TLD namespace is just lame. Unless your organization spans the reasons for those namespaces, you should be restricted from using them.

    Sorry, just had to rant a bit. It burns me when a good name is wasted by a squatter or someone that isn't using it.

    Of course, then you have the headache of adjudicating fair use...

  • In fact, this would hamper free speech. We don't need more restricted TLDs.

    I run a site, Overpopulation.Com, for example, that argues the world is not overpopulated. I get a lot of email from folks who think my domain name should be revoked because, they argue, only someone who thinks the world is overpopulated should have overpopulation.com

    And that's clearly what CPT is aiming for here. If I read their press release correctly, if I applied for overpopulation.ecology, they're going to reject me as not being a legitimate environmental group because of my political views.

    Very very bad idea.
  • So what, technically, is there preventing me from putting a DNS server on the internet?

    Nothing prevents you. Do you remember AlterNIC and their .earth and .biz domains? They had a whole network of TLD nameservers, that actually also incorporated pointers to the normal country TLDs and .com/net/org/edu/gov/mil, so you didn't need any other nameservers in your resolver.

    But it failed, and you know why? If half of the world implemented this system, but the other half didn't, half of the net's email would go into limbo because on its route it would find a nameserver that has no clue where to find the MX for yourdomain.earth.

    Also, t his article [internetworld.com] has some good reasons why you should not have a fragmented DNS.

  • As someone else suggested, it might be better to have fewer TLDs. The distinction between .net, .com, and .org is now irrelevant. So I suggest establishing a new TLD: .www, intended for web sites generally.

    All domains in .com would be replicated in .www at no charge. Domains in .net and .org would be replicated in .www if not already taken. New registrations in .net, .com, and .org would no longer be accepted. In a few years, .net, .com, and .org would be phased out. Browsers would default to .www.

    The effect would be to eliminate TLDs as a naming issue for most web sites. A web site name would be one word, with no dots. This would tend to reduce consumer confusion.

    Of course, then there'd be confusion between these names, the RealNames mess, and AOL keywords. Maybe keeping .com is a good thing.

  • I agree, the follow the money. Who will end up as the controlling/indexing interest? In the gold rush days, the guys made who dug for gold, sometimes made money, the guys who sold the shovels and pick axes, made the railroads etc. made gazillions.

    Nader and Co. may be facilitating this because of theeir beliefs etc, but the real driving force are the behind the scenes folks who will profit. Hmmm, don't know who, but I want to get on the Networksolutions.sucks bandwagon.

  • ... when amateurs and 'normal' people get hold of what was previously 'geek' technology. What a waste - imagine what this could do to most of the DNS servers - maybe we'll end up needing to implement IP-V6 just to cope with the extra demand.
  • Oh sure, Just because amazon.com can't own Amazon.sucks doesn't mean they won't find a way to lock it down. Either by having an employee, or a family member of an employee, or a stockholder, or a random guy on the street they paid 100 dollars to, etc. No matter how many rules you make about how this person or that person is not eligible to own the domain, the company or person that wants not to be criticized just goes one step further.
    This doesn't even cover the inevitable attempts to squat the domain names. The day the registers open, you'll have a bunch of guys running scripts that basically buy up the .sucks equivalent of everything that's already registered in .com. They'll put up a page that says domain.com sucks on each one, so that they can even say they are using it for the intended purpose.
    Maybe it would be possible to limit the # of domains a person could register in a day, but even that is highly impracticle, since any company could still get each employee to register their allottment each day and then transfer ownership, start dummy companies, pay temps to register more in their names, etc. Maybe you could do it as a lottery system, where someone tries to register a domain, but they don't get it for a specified period of time, while other people can try to register it. At the end, its randomly assigned to one of the people who tried to get it. I imagine you wouldn't tell people a name has been put into the system, or else, whenever any domain was locked in, every squatter on earth would put themselves in too, in hopes of selling it to the one guy who wants it. Just keep it a secret, and after a week, say "Registerer #598 gets it."
    That would help at least control the initial rush for buissness.sucks, drugs.sucks, otherbigmoneydomain.sucks. Still, I imagine the vast majority of the attempted registers would be squatters.
    Augh. Capitalism has destroyed the internet.

    -Tony

    ---

    "What is that sound its making?"

  • Not so with *unlimited* TLDs. (Score:3)

    by root ( 1428 ) on Thursday March 02, 2000 @06:56AM (#1231655) Homepage
    All this does is increase the number names companies will HAVE to buy, to protect their trademarks.

    Open the floodgates. Allow *anything* to be used as a TLD, HOWEVER.... and this is what's important: All domain registrations *must* still consist of two parts, domain+TLD. The TLD itself can be registered to no one nor belongs to anyone, thus insuring its availability to all.

    This will accomplish the following:

    (1) Campanies simply *cannot* "buy up" all the domains anymore as there will, for all practical purposes, be an infinite number of combinations for trademarkname.* as * can be now anything.

    (2) Companies with similar or identical names, but doing different things now have plenty of elbow room to coexist (unlike now). Apple computers has apple.com. What is Apple Records to do? Why, apple.records, of course. A farmer could have apple.farms, the temp agency could have apple.employment, etc. since, emphasizing again, that the TLD itself (.apple) can't be registered to anyone, thus future companies and individuals can forever enjoy use and availibility of the .apple TLD. Even Mr. Joe Apple (joe.apple).

    It'd be an end to squatting; an end to hoarding; an end to buying out of spite; an end to domain brokering. And how difficult would it be for servers to implement on a technical level? I see it as no worse than the .com subdomain is already being successfully handled (for now, inagine as *.com with the .com simply dropped).

  • Katz nations - site purpose in URL (Score:3)

    by jabber ( 13196 ) on Thursday March 02, 2000 @06:27AM (#1231656) Homepage
    Not too long ago, Jon Katz posted an article on cyber-nations. This is the level at which TLDs should be determined. Surely there are 'classes' of sites out there, and the surfer would benefit from having a better sense of the domains.

    Mainly, the .com domain is over used. No surprise there. As I see the usage of .com, it breaks down into shopping sites, business presence sites, business 'hit-and-run' announcement and advert sites, and service providing sites - selling no tangible product (yahoo or slashdot). The boundaries get blurry sometimes, but for the most part, I think this is accurate.

    Should we stick to the three-letter scheme? Is there an obligation to do so. Regardless, the purpose of the site should be shown in it's URL.
    So, there should be a .buy or .shop. Same for .corp or .inc or .biz; .ad/.advert; .priv or .fam, .serv (for places like here or pricewatch)

    Then again, there is the international consideration, where the domains OUGHT to be sensitive to the fact that no everyone speaks English. Any polyglots out there care to give this some thought?

    And of course, if we can corral all the porn sites to the .xxx domain, they'd be both easier to find and to filter.

  • It won't matter much (Score:3)

    by goldmeer ( 65554 ) on Thursday March 02, 2000 @07:10AM (#1231657)
    It really won't matter much if these TLD are available soon, or even now. Looking into my crystal ball, I see that it won't be too long before all servers physically located inside the USA borders are forced to adhere to strict laws regarding naming. It will soon be required to move from .edu, .com, .gov, .net and so over to .edu.us, .com.us, .gov.us, .net.us and so. After that, all domains with a .us name must adhere to rating laws. That way, you can have a government enforcable way to filter the internet.

    "but what about all non-us sites?" - They get filtered out by default on public terminals usable by minors.

    "can that filtering be turned off for adults" - Of course it can, but will it? I dunno.

    "Isn't that against freedom of speech" - No, it'll get shoehorned under federal regulation over international / interstate commerce.

    "can the states require even more location specific names?" - Yep. If the state of california requires .CA.US on all servers hosted in the sate, that can be done as well.

    "What about browsers, are they next?" - You betcha! After the feds shoehorn the TLD regulation under the guise of interstate / international commerce, and the states require state level domain naming, it's a brief interlude before browsers will be forced to identify what location it is in. That way, collecting taxes from internet purchases become easy to track and collect.

    -Joe
  • All this does is increase the number names companies will HAVE to buy, to protect their trademarks.

  • what.sucks (Score:3)

    by Fredbo ( 118960 ) on Thursday March 02, 2000 @05:03AM (#1231659) Homepage
    TLDs.with.more.than.three.letters.sucks

  • There were already better suggestions... (Score:4)

    by stevens ( 84346 ) on Thursday March 02, 2000 @05:12AM (#1231660) Homepage

    ...for TLDs, like .bus, .home. etc.

    What we don't need are special-interest groups turning the TLDs from a value-neutral categorizing system into a lobby effort with crap like .isnotgreen.

    Why, you ask? Well, it sets a really silly precedent. What about when someone lobbies for .isgay? Someone's gonne be up in arms about that.

    If this 'Consumer' org gets their wish, I'll be pushing for .isatreehuggingbullshitorganization

    Steve

  • This is a joke, right? (Score:5)

    by zpengo ( 99887 ) on Thursday March 02, 2000 @05:15AM (#1231661) Homepage
    Some points to consider:
    • The ".sucks" thing will never work. Every company that registers a ".com" will grab the ".sucks" as well, just in case. Microsoft will, without question, own "www.microsoft.sucks." The article says that companies will be prohibited from registering their own names under such a domain, but how can that be enforced? It goes against some very basic laws that give a company the right to control what happens to its name (a la eToys).
    • TLDs are not mean to simply be clever endings to website names. They serve a purpose. If ".sucks" is accepted, then so must be every other clever idea that someone comes up with for a URL. Why not ".ate.my.balls," for example. Yeah, they're cute, and yeah, it would be nice in some ways to have more URL flexibility, but it goes against the basic purpose of TLDs.
    • If it goes through, I have dibs on "www.linux.sucks" so that it can't fall into the wrong hands. *grin*


    ICQ: 49636524
    snowphoton@mindspring.com

Slashdot Top Deals

Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein

Close