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The Internet

New ICANN TLDs Are Live 174

Posted by CmdrTaco from the entering-a-new-era dept.
BenBenBen writes "According to this story on the BBC, several of the new ICANN top level domains now have sites available. Examples are visa.info and afilias.info. " I'm still waiting to get my 'dot' TLD. The article doesn't say much new except it tells us a few biz and info sites that you can use if you just wanna see a new TLD working. I gotta say, it's pretty surreal.
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New ICANN TLDs Are Live More

New ICANN TLDs Are Live

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  • I think that icann should stop bullying people around and let some of the rouge TLD's in. But I do see people using the new TLD's as a good step.
    • Hey,

      I already have slash.dot, or at least I had it
      until Nielsen vanished from the earth and
      apparently took .dot with him. It featured all
      the slashdot.org censored articles :)

      Leto

    • Re:New TLD's (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Zeinfeld ( 263942 )
      I think that icann should stop bullying people around and let some of the rouge TLD's in. But I do see people using the new TLD's as a good step.

      The only people I have seen bullying anyone have been the rogue TLDs.

      There are plenty of name squatters who have bought up new.net swampland who would like their real estate to be connected up to the interstate. So they yammer on with squeals of complaint.

    • I think more "ordinary" people should get into running their own nameservers - you want "http://spawnosatans.pants/" to point to the same place as "http://www.microsoft.com/" ? Well you can have it! pop it in your /etc/hosts file as an alias, or even run your own proxying DNS server...

      You don't need an addon to windows or linux for this - it's built into the OS, even in Windows - windows has a perfectly normal hosts.txt file, since it's network stack is from BSD.

      I'm just kinda surprised this doesn't happen more often - you could have people swapping personal lists of "cool" aliases - "but hyperlinks would stop working if the world didn't all use the same DNS root servers?" - well, maybe, but so what? The fragmentation impact would be much reduced since most web-pages have very domain-specific forests of links, so a short statement of "we use such-and-such's TLDs" on a site would usually be enough to sort things out, since most links would be to other pages within the same "family".

      All this could be made very pointy-clicky for the drooling idiots of the world - in fact, it would keep them entertained for hours, making their computer think www.popularfootballteam.com or whatever was called wank.droolers.suck.suck.suck...


    • > I think that icann should stop bullying people around and let some of the rouge TLD's in.

      Yes, but if they allow rouge now they'll end up having to allow all kind of other crazy colors later, so they need to hold the line as long as they can.

  • Color me shocked. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Spameroni ( 158440 )
    Is is just me, or is seeing a new four characters after a url not actually all that amazing?

  • new TLD's never thought it would happen (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ZenJabba1 ( 472792 ) on Sunday September 30, 2001 @10:39AM (#2370244) Homepage Journal
    Thinking about this, its the tipping point I feel from the internet being a military network and a academic and a research network, to a full blown business network with significant commerical interests.

    I don't know how to feel strangely, because we have known it will eventually happen, but it seems a little bit has been lost in the process of change.

    I'm not against change, I just ponder where we are heading...

    • You think the Internet has just now taken the step from mostly academic to largely commercial? Where have you been? The new TLDs change nothing, other than there will be more domains (sort of) so that people don't have to buy my-company-incorporated-123.com to host their site (ehh, that sites prolly taken already too).

      Ok, it won't make it easy, since most of the dictionary is probably sold already anyway, but it will help.

  • Don't buy .sex domains! It's not a real TLD! (Score:5, Informative)

    by chrysalis ( 50680 ) on Sunday September 30, 2001 @10:40AM (#2370245) Homepage
    Some registrars are offering ".sex" domain. However : .SEX ISN'T A TLD AND IT PROBABLY NEVER WILL.
    When you buy a .sex domain, the registrar send you a little pluging for Internet Explorer. That plugin adds lookups for .sex site on the registrar's name server. So it works. It works for you, it works for whoever installs the plugin.
    But it won't work for all the rest of the world. You'll be charged $75 for a domain that nobody will see.
    Take care, there are a lot of registrar registering ".sex" domains, saying that "they soon will be available as real TLDs". But that's untrue. Nobody knows whether it will even happen. But your credit card will be billed.

    • It won't help clean up the .com domains. The reason is becuase most sex sites don't conflict with domain names that businesses want for their web sites. For example, does IBM in contest for hotsex4uandgoats.com? No. Do sex sites have domain names like microsoft.com? As amusing as that would be, the answer is also no. .sex, while making porn smucks look a little harder for the wares they seek, wouldn't benefit the rest of us. And if it was official, it'd be something our browsers would search through if the domain we were looking for was unavailable. It'd annoy me greatly if a route to debian.org was unavailable and my browser defaulted to debian.sex and a web site containing photos of Ian's and Debra's love life.
      • Do sex sites have domain names like microsoft.com? As amusing as that would be, the answer is also no.

        Good point! [whitehouse.com]

        (Seriously, I do agree with you and besides this venerable exception and the oft-mentioned difficulty of getting good clean musical fun after typing "Britney Spears" into a search engine (although lately even the official Britney material is becoming delightfully unclean), there really is no real possibility of confusing porn and non-porn sites. IMO while a .sex domain might theoretically bring some benefits, the potential for censorship of every other tld and the blocking of .sex would be too great if it existed.)
    • No offense, but just who do you think you are talking to here? :)

      I would hope the average Slashdot community member would know that. Then again, I've seen some wierd posts that could disprove that theory.

      Don't buy .kewl domains either. They're fake.

    • Besides, .sex is misleading. If you consider what these sites are really for, you'll agree that the TLD should be .wank instead.
    • >>>>> When you buy a .sex domain, the registrar send you a little pluging for Internet Explorer. That plugin adds lookups for .sex site on the registrar's name server. So it works. It works for you, it works for whoever installs the plugin.
      But it won't work for all the rest of the world. You'll be charged $75 for a domain that nobody will see.

      Now THAT'S what I call getting well screwed :)
    • Well, according to an article I read about a year ago, large corporations were some of the largest vendors of porn! GM, Disney and others all had their fingers in the pot selling filth over cable TV at hotels and such. Nasty. The funny thing is that places with the most represive laws, like Utah, had the highest porn consumption. Go figure, unhealthy attitutdes breed unatural desires and suckers willing to pay for it. Don't discount the possiblity of these enterprising investors putting their product in an easy to find and restricted domain.

      Still won't clean up the rest of the net. Only a proven lack of demand will do that. Too bad there's a new one born every minute.

  • Isn't the whole Internet about information? Why on Earth would we need a .info TLD? And what is wrong with www.visa.com? I'm all for new TLDs. but these don't seem to fit in at all with what we have already.

    There is one plus that I can think of. Maybe people will start to realize that not everything is a "dot com".

  • Why This Is A Bad Idea... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lethyos ( 408045 ) on Sunday September 30, 2001 @10:50AM (#2370260) Journal
    There's already hundreds of thousands of web sites that already fall under the wrong TLD category because current TDL's are too vague. These two only make it worse. There is nothing wrong with adding TLD's, but we need them to be MORE specific to prevent ongoing domain name conflicts. Dot info and dot biz... besides the fact that they seem rather "immature" and "umprofessional" respectively, they don't help clue me in much on what I'm looking at. "What's the difference between a COMmerical site and a BIZiness site? Isn't somecompany.com also a BIZiness?" "Is this ORGinzation just about INFO?"

    These domains add confusion and too much generality. At the risk of a TLD being too long, why not create a ".store" for retail fronts, or ".gr(ou)p" for non-established organizations (that one would be great for OSS developers). How about extending the concept of the .TLD. scheme to include regions? www.somecompany.com.east/west/se/etc.

    I may just be blowing my horn here, but these things are just plain dumb. Some of my suggestions here may add some confusion, but won't adding to the mess also do that in a less constructive way?
    • How about extending the concept of the .TLD. scheme to include regions? www.somecompany.com.east/west/se/etc.

      Country codes are enough. How would you be meant to know where in the world that region truely is?

    • East/west/SE relative to what ?

      Anyway, you can achieve that very easily using the
      non-domain part of your URL:

      www.somecompany.com/east (or west, or tanzania, or whatever)
    • What if you are James Dremel, and your company is Dremel Toyota, and you want to make a web site. Sorry dremel.com is taken. dremel.net and dremel.org don't make sense for a business. Sorry, dremelauto.com and mydremel.com, and godremel.com, and dremeltoyota.com are already taken. What do you do? welcome-to-dremel-auto.com? How about dremel.biz?

      Also, most ORGanization sites might be informational, but most INFOrmational sites aren't necessarily organizations. I know I was looking to put up a specific product news site awhile back. I couldn't find a good .COM name (even though I'm wasn't commercial), yet I was just ONE guy hardly falling under the category of ORGanization...

      What astonishes me is how LONG it took to implement them. What the hell took so long?!
    • We should just get rid of TLDs altogether. These new ones like .info are just a ploy by registrars to get more money, because Dell will register dell.com, dell.info, dell.biz and so on. It wouldn't be possible for different sites to have the .com and .biz domains: they'd start suing each other until a point where both belong to the same company. So these new names do not expand the namespace at all.

      Why not hand out TLDs themselves? So Dell could have 'dell' and make www.dell and so on under there. That is the least insane way to do things given the current legal system.

      (Of course the sane way would be to go for TLDs where the legal procedures are clearly defined: .wto for domains arbitrated by the WTO, .us for domains subject to US trademark laws, and .fcfs for strictly first come, first served registration.)

      • Right know Foobar Computers and Foobar Foodstuff are fighting over the domain foobar.com. If you get rid of TLDs, they will fight for .foobar. What's the difference?

        Using trademarks for domain names won't work either. Foobar Computers and Foobar Foodstuff may well both have a trademark on the word Foobar, but for different products.

        For a fun real-world illustration, see this page [bell-labs.com]. It lists many products called "Unix", such as Unix® diapers and Unix eyeglass frames.

        The only solution I see, is (a) getting rid of .com, .net, etc. and only keep the regional domains and maybe .int, and (b) force organisations to use their full name. Of course, you won't have short URLs with this scheme...

        • Yeah, the two companies would fight over foobar. They would not have to fight over foobar.com, .biz, .net, .org, .info, etc etc with the same company taking all of them. So it's just acknowledging the reality that multiple TLDs are useless because lawyers want to make sure they all have the same content.
        • The difference is that one should be .foobarfoods, and the other should be .foobarcomputers.

          .foobar should list all demains which involve foobar, kinda like how alteon.com [alteon.com] lets you see both the Alteon pharmacuticals group, and Alteon web systems.

          This is how two entities with trademarks to the same name, but in different fields, can co-exist peacefully.
      • One the plus side, the license for registrars to print money probably ran out with ".com". Hopefully, businesses will shun them the new TLDs will cost registrars more money than they take in.
    • There's already hundreds of thousands of web sites that already fall under the wrong TLD category because current TDL's are too vague.

      Too vague? It's the enforcement of domain use policy that's too vague.

      Are you a COMpany? .com
      Are you running a NETwork? .net
      Are you running an ORGanization? .org
      Are you doing this for an EDUcational institution? .edu
      Is this for the GOVernment? .gov
      MILitary? .mil

      What's too vague about that? I agree that adding more TLDs will create confusion, but there's not confusion now.

      • So what is the right TLD for slashdot?

        Is Slashdot the Government? No.
        Is Slashdot the Military? No.
        Is Slashdot a Network? It might qualify as "network of geeks"
        Is Slashdot educational? Sometimes.
        Is Slashdot a company? It's somehow part of the OSDnetwork which is a COMpany.
        Is Slashdot an ORGanization? See "network".

        So what is the TLD you think slashdot should have?
        (other than CT's favorite slash.dot)
    • These domains add confusion and too much generality ...
      .... I may just be blowing my horn here, but these things are just plain dumb

      Ok, they may add confusion, and they may be dumb, but there is one thing they will do very well - adding to the profits of the registars.

      Do you really believe that these decisions were made for the good of the people in general? The only reason these came into existance was to make the people in power more money.

    • How about extending the concept of the .TLD. scheme to include regions? www.somecompany.com.east/west/se/etc.

      Hmmm... when we're at it, we could just reintroduce the good old ICBM addressing ;-)

  • hohoho (Score:3, Funny)

    by MattW ( 97290 ) <matt@ender.com> on Sunday September 30, 2001 @10:54AM (#2370264) Homepage
    Once you get the 'dot' TLD, you can finally move slashdot to slashdot.dot. That will be even more fun to say around the uninitiated.

    • Re:hohoho (Score:5, Funny)

      by mr3038 ( 121693 ) on Sunday September 30, 2001 @11:01AM (#2370277)
      Can you imagine yourself saying h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slash-dot-dot-dot to unaware cow-orker? Yeah, I know it should have extra slash in the end but it sounds better this way.
      • "yourself saying h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slash-dot-dot-dot to unaware co-worker?"

        Aww too bad. A couple of more slashes and we might have had morse code for 'sos' (Ya, I know SOS in morse is '. . . / / / . . .').

        Still funny just the same.
    • It shouldn't be too long before the Department of Transportation gets a new home:
      www.dot.dot
    • Once you get the 'dot' TLD, you can finally move slashdot to slashdot.dot.

      You could simplify that to "slash.dot".
  • I'm still waiting for the .444 TLD

  • http://www.info.info

  • .sex? (Score:3, Funny)

    by zarathustra93 ( 164244 ) on Sunday September 30, 2001 @11:10AM (#2370296) Homepage
    Does this mean that it would finally be http://www.goat.sex instead of http://www.goatse.cx? It would truly be the end of an era on slashdot if that happened :-)
  • Everytime I point Konquerer at visa.info it just flickers for few seconds and dies on a SIGABRT. Pretty much sums up the whole "new TLD" experience for me.
  • Man, somebody needs a life :)

    [circumventing lameness filter]

  • So young, and already abused. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Starship Titanic ( 207017 ) on Sunday September 30, 2001 @11:23AM (#2370317)
    Well, I was browsing through the new .info whois, and decided to check out sex.info. Of course, it's already registered, no surprise there. However, apparently, it wasn't registered under the "Open Registration" rules, but as a trademark. Yes, boys and girls, this is what the whois info shows:
    Trademark Name: SEX
    Trademark Date: 2000-01-04
    Trademark Country: USA
    Trademark Number: 2306348
    As a search on The USPTO [uspto.gov] shows, a very specific rendering of "sex" is trademarked by a Jaime M Cerrato, to be used for "games, playthings and novelty items, namely, mechanical pull toys." This trademark was used by Hera Ventures and Investments, Ltd. to register sex.info. Somehow, I doubt the only thing that site is going to be doing is selling "mechinal pull toys". Dirty trick or outright fraud? I don't know, but it's obviously abuse.
    • The whole tld system is abusive .. If I type in sex.info, chances are, I don't want to see assloads of flogging devices. What *should* be there is an informational site. A little AIDS awareness, some medical background.. you know.. stuff *about* sex.

      So, what do we get instead? The website of some wanker who managed to send the paperwork into the USPTO.

      I guess little Jimmy will technically get information at sex.info .. but we might just as well send him to goatse.cx for all the good it will do.

  • the reason for "traditional TLDs" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nilstar ( 412094 ) on Sunday September 30, 2001 @11:30AM (#2370336) Homepage
    Isn't one of the biggest selling points for traditional TLDs the fact that they are easy to remember? Sure there are many country specific TLDs, but usually they are used by people in your/nearby countries......

    How many people are going to remember that my site is not www.thinkbrown.com but instead www.thinkbrown.info or www.thinkbrown.TLDoftheday?

    Heck, why don't we go one step furhter, I want to define my own TLDs.

    I don't buy into the arguement that traditional TLDs are all taken.... just stop the domain squatters and you'll be happy.

  • I wonder (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jayhawk88 ( 160512 ) <jayhawk88@gmail.com> on Sunday September 30, 2001 @11:32AM (#2370339)
    If 90% of these new TLD's are simply going to refer back to the .com of the business that snaps them up, like I suspect (dell.info->dell.com), and if those .com's aren't really changed in any way (no reason they should)...

    Is this the worlds biggest DNS server? Meta DNS? Seriously, though, how many companies who snatch up an .info or whatever are going to bother to create a new web site specifically for that domain?

  • How do you think companies will react? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by avij ( 105924 ) on Sunday September 30, 2001 @11:35AM (#2370350) Homepage
    As the article implies, this will most probably lead to existing companies reserving more domain names in new TLDs. Let's take an example, say, Finnair, our beloved Finnish airline.

    finnair.fi [finnair.fi] already belongs to Finnair
    finnair.com [finnair.com] as well, as they're doing business in many countries so they'll need an "international" commercial domain
    finnair.aero just because they're dealing with aviation
    finnair.biz because they're doing business
    finnair.pro - well, they're professionals after all
    finnair.info, timetables anyone?

    Nice move, ICANN.
    • I work for the company managing the technical backend for .pro, and while I understand you're saying this at least partially tongue-in-cheek, I need to correct your misconception. .Pro is for licensed professionals onle - at the time of veritifcation, license numbers, etc. will be submitted. There will be subdomains of .law.pro, .med.pro, etc.

      Now, whether that's useful to anyone, I don't know. But no finnair.pro, I'm afraid.

      Thanks,
      Matt
      Note: I work for a domain registrar, but I don't speak for one.
  • It crashes consistently on www.visa.info; (KDE 2.2); I guess the shock of a four letter TLD was too much for it :-)

    [Actually, it's just crappy HTML code with frames. Too bad people still can't code.]

    I wonder how long it will take for the 7 'forbidden' words to make it to TLD; now that would be news.
  • Of course you knwo this is going to lead to a lot of broken code.. which verify's an email to have a 2-3 letter TLD.... lord knows i've beens subjected to it.

  • Didn't get mine.... :-( (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KjetilK ( 186133 ) <kjetil@@@kjernsmo...net> on Sunday September 30, 2001 @11:38AM (#2370359) Homepage Journal
    Well, I tried to get some .info domains, but I'm still waiting to see if any goes through. Afilias [afilias.info] doesn't seem to clued to me. Also, I've spoken with my registrar, it seems like the whole company is in a mess, and nobody really knows what is going on.

    Well, I was really going to rant about trademarks. TMs is usually the part of IP regime that I find the least problematic, but. There is something strange there.

    Here's my story:

    I have for several years maintained a site titled "How to use a compass" [folk.uio.no]. Since I've been orienteering for many years, and just because I could write this, just because the web allowed me to become a publisher, I did write it up.

    It is time for the site to move on, I intend to open it up for many contributors. I intend to get a few excellent orienteers and expeditionists to join me in making this site even better, and I intend to release it under the GNU Free Documentation License (but with some modifications to allow people to print and distribute printouts more easily).

    Obviously, I should have a domain for it. While I have other options, what can possibly be more fitting for this site than compass.info? It is the most used compass tutorial on the web, there are a few of them, but most are actually using my illustrations... The site is literally information about the centuries-old gadget called a compass.

    However, it has been decided that trademarks owners should have a prior right to our language (eh, well, English is not my native tongue, I'm Norwegian). They should be allowed to grab first, and so, compass.info is gone. Like in some many cases, the compass has been used metaphorically. There is actually very little information about the gadget compass on the web, but there is extensive use of the term "compass" used metaphorically. In fact, this is a problem I've had when designing metadata for the site.

    I'm quite confident (yep, I do have some self-confidence :-) ), that if the delegation of domain names had been based on what merit a site has for accurately describing what lies in a name, my site would have won... :-)

    So, what is it with trademarks that makes them so valuable for mankind that it is more important that the domain name compass.info is used do point to a product that has nothing to do with what has for centuries been known as a compass, rather than an accurate description on how to use this gadget....?

    I do not doubt that the American College Testing Program [act.org], who has been awarded compass.info has good intentions for it, but still, the question stands, why is it that trademarks should have that level of protection?

    I feel there is something wrong about all this. Names are a scarce resource, and should be treated with caution. I feel the use of trademarks needs a review. This isn't what they are supposed to be: My parents went to China and bought "The North Face" jackets with a Gore-Tex membran for just about nothing. While they realize it certainly aren't real North Face jackets, I have yet to convince them it certainly has no Gore-Tex membran. They are going to get seriously wet one of these days... :-) That's what trademarks are supposed to do for us: protect us from being sold crap. They're not supposed to be used for grabbing bits and pieces of living langauges...

  • New TLDs need to be reconsidered (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dfn5 ( 524972 ) on Sunday September 30, 2001 @11:39AM (#2370361) Journal
    The Internet does not need new TLDs. I remember the day when someone wanted to get a .org domain they needed to be a non-profit organization. Or if you wanted a .net you had to provide Internet infrastructure. Nowadays when you go to Network Solutions they say "Reserve .com, .net, and .org all at the same time before someone else does". They are meaningless. So now that we have .ws, .info, and .biz it just means that a company has to get more domains at the same time. And usually a company only uses .com and just let the other domains sit unused to prevent others from getting it. It seems to me that the only people benefiting from new TLDs are the registrars because they get more money from the additional registrations.

    Let me just talk about .ws for a second. This is the most meaningless TLD of them all. The nodename part of a domainname should specify what the service is i.e. www, smtp, ns, nntp, etc... otherwise we need to create all these others as TLDs as well, which I'm sure everyone would agree is silly.

    And to those who have posted that we need regional TLDs, we have those already. The are called country code TLDs. In fact I think we should get rid of .com, .net, .org, .edu, and .gov and stick them under .us. It seems to work for the UK and Australia. A company should have to register a .com.ccTLD for the countries they exist in. The Internet is not just the United States anymore.

    In summary new TLDs only polute the DNS name space.

    • We should get rid of the whole idea of TLDs. It is an artifical limitation.
      • um, no it's not. it's an artificial *organization*.

        The theory was the same name could exist on separate TLDs, owned by separate people, doing different things.

        apple.net wasn't supposed to be apple.com wasn't supposed to be apple.org. So instead of .apple, you'd have at least three domain hierarchies under .apple.TLD.

        That's not a limitation, that's compartmentalizing and therefore broadening the namespace.

    • .ORG was never intended to be for just non-profit organizations, and has never been enforced as such, except perhaps at the registrar level by ignorant registrars. According to RFC 1591 by Postel himself:

      ORG - This domain is intended as the miscellaneous TLD for organizations that didn't fit anywhere else. Some non-government organizations may fit here.

      See - its miscellaneous. In addition, .ws is a country-code TLD - in this case its for Western Samoa. The concept of .ws being for a "website" is purely marketing.

      As far as polluting the namespace - the DNS system is designed to support a large number of TLDs. The restraints that need to be placed are policy ones, not technical ones.

      Thanks,
      Matt
      Note: Although I work for a domain registrar, I don't speak for one.

    • Re:New TLDs need to be reconsidered (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In fact I think we should get rid of .com, .net, .org, .edu, and .gov and stick them under .us. It seems to work for the UK and Australia. A company should have to register a .com.ccTLD for the countries they exist in. The Internet is not just the United States anymore.

      1) COM/ORG/NET were always international domains, however they've always been managed by the US governenment

      2) COM is popular in the UK and Australia.

      3) Country code domain policy is under local administration. There is no such thing as .COM.US or .COM.CX, and nobody can force them to create subdomains like that. .US for example is a complete mess and is generally only available to local governments.

      4) GOV/MIL/EDU are historical accidents that show a bias towards the government that built the Internet. There's no feasible way to obsolete these domains, and until you think of one, forget trying. How many UKians are even aware of MIL anyway? Most USians aren't (goarmy.com).

      5) The Domain system was never intended to be the greatest rational hierarchy or a means of locating information -- it was always intended to be layered with other directory systems (Yahoo, Switchboard, 'Internet keywords', whatever). Get that through your head.

      6) Trying to reform the domain name system at this point is like trying switch over to metric time. Unless you have a time machine and can go back to 1988 and discuss it with Jon Postel, forget about it. Now.

      7) Adding a couple new TLDs does seem like a pointless exercise, or even extorition by the registrars. However, keep in mind that these are just a test run for planned massive expansion of TLDs. Given enough of them, it will be virutally impossible for a company to buy all of them, or for squatters to eat up the namespace. I'm not going to make a judgement of whether this is a good idea, only that it's too early to tell. (see #5) One point is that it's culturally and techincally very difficult to contract the namespace, but it's easy to expand it.
    • Yup. This sounds good, and international sites could go under .int TLD.
    • The registrars saw how much money was to be made on collectibles, e.g. Pokemon, "collect all 20,000 of them!" So they figured they'd get in on the game. The more TLD's there are, the bigger the game, and the more money they can make. Just you wait, slashdot.org and slashdot.dot will just be the beginning. Soon enough, we'll also have slashdot.pikachu.
  • After some deliberation, I have decided to post this. I could have quietly informed one of the /. editors. I should have bought this ripe little domain for myself, but I am skint. So here it is, somebody snap this peachy little domain please - Its still available, according to internetters.co.uk:
    slashdot.info

    go get it.....
  • Hmm, when can I register http://www.chicken.coop ?
  • What is a good company to use to get a .info domain name?

  • "On 16 August 2001 the W3C made public a proposal to substantially change their patent policy framework. Amongst the changes is support for a new licensing model (called RAND) that legitimises the W3C's role in developing and promoting standards that could require the payment of royalties."

    Today, September 30, is the last day for submitting a comment. You can read more about this at Linux Today [linuxtoday.com].

    Act now, while you can still access the Web via free software.

  • TLD propaganda (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Garry Anderson ( 194949 )
    There is propaganda being spread by the authorities, that these new TLDs will solve the problems for trademarks - it is a lie.

    THOUSANDs of new open TLDs will not solve any problem - even if every one has 'Sunrise Period'

    It will not solve 'consumer confusion', 'trademark conflict' or stop anybody 'passing off'.

    Also, as an example on Sunrise, thousands of trademarks using word 'Apple' have no guarantee of being able to use name.

    Apple computers will still protect and make claim to every Apple.[anything] - even though they share word with 727 others in the USA alone (plus all those in 200+ countries).

    TRUE or FALSE?

    No reply required - I know the TRUTH - The solution to trademark problem is at WIPO.org.uk [wipo.org.uk].

  • At: http://swhois.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?whois=VISA.INFO [swhois.net]

    To quote:

    • [VISA.INFO] is available

    Woo hoo!

    Sign me up!

    [we're in the money.. c'mon my honey...]

    t_t_b

  • I know this has been suggested numerous times in every discussion about the new TLDs, but I feel that I should just reiterate my position on this.

    Personally, I beleive that TLDs should be taken care of just like domains are. Though, moving off track, subdomains are taken care of exclusively on the domain's server, without any interaction with the registrar. Not that I am saying this should be the same for TLDs, but te route of the subdomain works well for domains now.

    TLDs on the other hand should be registered with the registrar, but as soon as it is created [.conesus perhaps] anyone can now register domains on that TLD. Or maybe just have every TLD as part of the domain. Instead of removing the TLDs completely [http://conesus], there could be a two part domain system, replacing the one part domain, and one part fixed TLD. [http://conesus.web-design] or [http://microsoft.software] or even [http://microsoft.porn]. That way, Microsoft wouldn't be concerned about registering microsoft.porn, because nobody would even go there if they were looking for a microsoft product.

    If we [as humans, not just US citizens] can remember phone numbers for all the people/family/friends/businesses we call regularly, then why can't we remember two-part names that can be easily looked up [by Google, or by asking, or by looking at that piece of paper you got when you were wondering about a piece of software, and a representative gave you the web address]. This solves a lot of these .com problems, but what I am really wondering is, how many new problems are created when we remove the TLD system, and institute a two part domain system, so not every word is taken.

    • "...Microsoft wouldn't be concerned about registering microsoft.porn, because nobody would even go there if they were looking for a microsoft product...."

      Speak for yourself...

      t_t_b

  • TLD contacts... (Score:4, Informative)

    by tcc ( 140386 ) on Sunday September 30, 2001 @01:21PM (#2370636) Homepage Journal

    There's always http://www.icann.org/tlds/

    If you want to voice your concerns about a specific issue with the new domains. Direct contacts, that's evil, I wonder if they will read all their mail.

  • New TLDs aren't new. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dr. Zowie ( 109983 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMdeforest.org> on Sunday September 30, 2001 @01:34PM (#2370670)
    There have been other TLDs in operation in
    limited subsets of the 'Net for some time.
    Check out OpenNIC's site [opennic.net] for a host of information about an internet namespace that's administered democratically. (There are several such namespaces, many of which are coalescing into a large, collaborative space run by the people,
    for the people. OpenNIC is particularly well
    run.)

    The new ICANN standards actually conflict with pre-existing namespaces (such as .biz).

    All you have to do is point your DNS server into
    the OpenNIC tree...
  • This morning I had a gnutella connection from a machine at who.int. I tried www.who.int and it works - turns out it's the World Health Organization.

    What is .int and where did it come from? I presume it means "international" but I've never heard of .int before and the article doesn't mention it as one of the new TLDs. I tried www.nic.int, but it's restricted. Anyone know where more info can be found?

    Shaun

    • Re:What is .int? (Score:2, Informative)

      by dbolger ( 161340 )
      The .int domains are controlled by the Internation Telecommunications Union [itu.int]. Its a group in which "governments and the private sector coordinate global telecom networks and services", according to their website.

      This one's not new, but rather is one of the "special" TLDs, alongside .gov, .edu, and .mil. Its used for International Organizations, such as the United Nations [un.int].

      • Its used for International Organizations, such as the United Nations [un.int].

        Not to be confused with the United Nations Special Interest Group for Networking Educational Districts [unsigned.int].

        (You may now groan).

    • Re:What is .int? (Score:3, Informative)

      by KjetilK ( 186133 )
      It's an old one. I tried to get one for the International Association of Physics Students (IAPS) [iaphys.org], but failed.

      Well, it is for "international organizations", but in this context, they have decided to follow the definition used by the International Law on Treaties, in which "international organization" is defined to be "intergovernmental organization", such as the UN, WHO, etc. What they say is that to get a .int, the organization would have to be formed by an international treaty between governments (there is another option: international databases).

      However, it should be quite clear that the International Law of Treaties never intended to give a general definition of "international organization", so what has happened is that most organizations that are international has been excluded. I for one think that IAPS belongs in .int.

      Now the really bad part of this is that certain organizations has been allowed to get .int though they have not been formed by international treaties, for example YMCA [ymca.int]. YMCA has a similar formation history as IAPS, and does certainly not fit the criteria used. I think they do belong in .int, but it kind of makes you wonder what they did to get that name.

  • Just a note on the .biz registration process:

    I wanted to get a certain .biz domain. I pre-pre-submitted a request for the name WAY back when they first started talking about these new tlds. After a while, more people jumped on the bandwagon and it began to look like we were really going to see these come into circulation. I did some more research about the (pre) registration process and found that while you could pay your registrar to 'reserve' the name for you, they couldn't initially guarantee that you would get the name. In fact you just got an entry into an intial drawing (which is tomorrow, IIRC) when you might actually be awarded the name. Needless to say, I bought several more "entries" for my domain of choice (it's that good... really)

    One critical loophole: the initial pre-registration period is also meant to allow those with trademark or "intellectual property" claims to a name to challenge your right to register it. While this sounds like a good way to protect legitimate rights, it just allowed people time to register all kinds of bogus claims with the USPTO [uspto.gov]. Last week I received a notice from Neuland (?) informing me that 15 or 20 people had "IP" claims to my domain. What should I do? Do I have any chance, as a non-corporate-lawyer-holding netizen of preserving my rights to the name even if I happen to be awarded it? I'd think that I should have just as much right to it as anybody else considering there's no "prior use" of the .biz tld.
  • afilias.info works already for many weeks. Not new. J.
  • With the market crash .COMs have gone belly up left and right. Valuable .COM addresses are now exchanged for a cup of coffee. More power to people wanting to use a non standrard TLD, but reality says the WORLD, uses .COM. I remember a story here or on Kuroshin about the lack of use on the off brand TLD's.

  • .www TLD (Score:2, Funny)

    by cr@ckwhore ( 165454 )
    I'd like to see a .www TLD because it would be funny. Could you imagine the confusion of http://org.slashdot.www? That would kick ass!

  • The AlterDNS Project is within weeks of being ready. New TLD's, no corps allowed, and I personally wipe my butt with any lawyer letters that even imply that they have something to do with trademark. Our software/config doesn't hijack your resolv.conf, and we encourage people to run their own web/email/irc/whatever sites on their own computers. Even those of you using dialup, can run a low traffic site on your own home computer (that's right, builtin dynamic DNS!). Don't wait to register your domain!
  • i think it should be mentioned that the whole .info

    pre-registration process (the "sunrise" period for

    trademark holders) has resulted in a profound mess.

    highlights include music.info pre-registered with a

    corea trademark for "dumping", analsex.info with a

    morocco trademark for "sandip singh sandhu", or

    newyork.info obtained by the holder of the u.s.

    trademark no. "e.g. 12345". dozens of domains were

    given to the holder(s) of an albanian patent for

    "unknown", issued on january 2, 2040.

    during "sunrise", one individual from austria has

    pre-registered no less than 4981 .info-domains.

    another guy has not only successfully filed

    trademarks for lawyers.info and attorneys.info, but

    also for blowjobs.info and teensex.info. other

    domain names, like hawaii.info, have been taken over by registrars for "testing purposes".

    if you want more info on .info:

    icann forum [icann.org]

    the internet challenge [theinternetchallenge.com]
    • ehem... if you *really* didn't like the formatting, go to bugzilla.mozilla.org and file another bug about form submissions...
    • G*d*mn it, this is so ridiculous, I actually wanted a domain, but I went the legitimate way, and now wont get shit because some jackass in London decided to submit false trademark claims, and register them with the administrative contact "THIS DOMAIN FOR SALE". Thus, not only has he broken the Sunrise regulations by a fraudulent trademark, but also carried out cybersquatting, which was exactly what the registration process was supposed to prevent. My only option now is to challenge it, for $300!!! Looks like I'll just sit on my ass and cry.

      -cryptophiliac
  • The weirdest of them all will be .name. According to the registrar's rules, you have to register your own legal name (ie, no "cowboy.neal.name" :), and you actually have to register it in the format of "firstname.lastname.name." That would suggest subdomain to me, so I really don't know how to the hell they are doing this.

    Does anyone know? Will "bob.smith.name" actually be a different domain from "john.smith.name"?
    • Your only partially correct about the cowboy.neal.name :) There's provisions both for using names of fictional characters provided you own the rights to that character, and for using nicknames, provided that name is commonly known to refer to you.

      So presumably Rob would get away with commander.taco.name, for instance.

      As for registrations on the third level, technically that is trivially easy. The reason that has been done is so that the second level can be shared for mail purposes. So while under .com only one of Bob Smith and John Smith would be able to get smith.com, and use bob@smith.com or john@smith.com, unless they could agree to share it (or Bob could decide to register bobsmith.com, and get a crappy mail address like bob@bobsmith.com, or similar), under .name they can get bob.smith.name/bob@smith.name and john.smith.name/john@smith.name respectively.

      Some data I took out on that this weekend shows that in the US, for the 65000 most common lastnames, 22 million people would be able to get their firstname.lastname.name without doing anything special. If you take into account nicknames, use of initials, use of hyphens etc., that number increases to more than 100 million that can get a nice name-based e-mail address on the form firstname@lastname.name, as opposed to only 65000 if noone share the second level.

      If you add in the people with less common lastnames, the number increase to about 170 million in the US alone, before you need to start doing stuff like adding numbers.

      Of course, for more common last names, like Smith, using numbers will be necessary quite a lot earlier than for less common lastnames.

      (Ob Disclaimer: I co-founded the company that operates .name, but I'm talking only for myself)

  • The biggest problem that I have with the .com revolution is the confusion it has created for me when visting online businesses.

    Since .com became so trendy, lots of UK businesses registered these domains or moved sites away from the .co.uk TLD. This causes me difficulty, because when at at .co.uk site I can be reasonably sure that the site will post and pack deliveries to/in the UK. When looking at .com's, not all of the offer overseas shipping.

    Therefore, buy searching .co.uk for shops first, I can usually find a price in pounds sterling together with reasonable postage options. Since everything went .com, it is much harded to find such a distinction.

    Surely more TLD's are only going to move further away from the geographical reality of the world and further confuse a lot of information.

    In fact, if I could start again, I'd trash .com and demand people use .co.us instead.

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