ICANN Selects New Top Level Domains 291
Azog, joined by a bevy of like-mindeds, wrote with the news: "ICANN has selected several proposals for new TLDs for further negotiation. The selected entries, and their proposed TLDs, are:
JVTeam (.biz), Afilias (.info), Global Name Registry (.name), RegistryPro (.pro), MDMA (.museum), SITA (.aero), and NCBA (.coop)." Here is the
unanimously accepted resolution.
cyrdog points to Wired's coverage, and pavelivanov points to the story at CNET. And as several people have pointed out, .web is conspicously absent, even though it seems like a shoo-in. Someone, somewhere is going to get that one day ... Update: 11/17 09:48 PM by H :Check out SatireWire's coverage as well *grin*.
Trademarks - the intellectual approach (Score:1)
The World Intellectual Piracy Organization (WIPO.org.uk [wipo.org.uk]) has been telling them what they already know.
To make trademarks lawful requires:
1. TM identifier - example
2. Classification identifier - example
3. Country identifier - example
So dominos pizzas in USA would be domino.food.us.reg
They may not like it, but it is the only way to make trademarks comply with law.
Dot coms, dot biz etc. can all still be used. Dot REG would act as certificate of authentication.
Re:No more names, a proposal (Score:2)
No it's not, asshole! IP addresses of hosts within a network change, a naming system needs to stand one layer higher to allow the owner of the network some flexibility. IP addresses have all sorts of problems for use as host names, multiple hosts per IP, multiple IPs per host and so on.
And also because when you just hear about a company 'Underplunder, Inc.' you don't have to suck out of your finger some name, but can just try underplunder.com and you might get your match...
Which is exactly why the current system is breaking down. What if there is another Underplunder Inc? The current system assumes that there is one such name per country plus a handful of "special" ones which get .net, .com or .org. This was fine when the net was small but is just useless under the assumption that everyone has, or can have, their own site. How many names for companies or people are there? There must be duplication in any letter-based system.
The assumption that people can't remember numbers is wrong (well, for most of us, anyway), as shown by telephone numbers, and numbers avoid almost all the problems with the current DNS.
Wake up: DNS is disintegrating as we speak and ICANN is not helping. What do you think is the solution?
TWW
Re:Why some obvious ones weren't accepted... (Score:2)
Allow me to say... (Score:2)
Instead, they cluttered the namespace with a bunch of lame crap. Who put them in charge, again?
They put themselves in charge (Score:1)
The real problem is the lack of accountability with ICANN. When they were set up a board of directors was appointed who had to step down after a certain period. In an attempt to show openness they launched the At-Large campaign where web users could register and elect new directors.
So they had the election and discovered that the web users voted in the strongest critics of ICANN. Oh, dear, a problem, the ICANN board got around this by tweeking the interpretation of the rules such that the new directors would be unable to vote until after the next AGM. They also voted themselves an extension of the time in which they can stay in office. There is even talk now about reducing the number of elected officials in the future. BTW I have an enormous respect for some of the current directors so don't tar them all with the same brush.
There was a great article on Slashdot only a couple of days ago about an analysis of the domain dispute policy. This pointed out in no uncertain terms how the system favoured the complainer in that they could select the resolution body and surprise the bodies which ruled most frequently for the complainant got the most work.
I am from the UK and have concerns about an organisation which is based in the US and subject to US laws controlling such an important area of the Internet as the actions of that body will be determined by what is regarded as acceptable to the residents of North America and not myself. With the existing .ORG, .COM and .NET (ignoring the others for the moment) domains there is little problem as there are no 'rules' about what someone can do with them after registration. With the new ones which are coming out things will be different. Consider museum, who decides what is permitted to be registered ? ICANN along with MDMA. There ***will*** be disagreements as to what contitutes a museum particually when different languages and national laws are involved. Can you see North Korea happily accepting the decision made by ICANN in regard to an application. Anyway who gives them the right to do this? - themselves.
Aquatic Mammals can register in .name! (Score:1)
Missing TLD Proposal (Score:2)
Vint Cerf for President! (Score:1)
Now, open the Real-Time Chat Log [harvard.edu] and do a search for: "Oh. My." (spoken by Christopher Ambler) and read along after watching the video! See as Vint Cerf goes into "attack-mode" and takes on Louis Touton and Joe Sims.
Check out Christopher Ambler and the chat-room's reaction to the whole thing! Incredible and hilarious at the same time! Watch the look on the Board Member's faces when they realize that Afilias isn't going to get .web!
Take that NSI !!!!!
.WEB is redundant! (Score:1)
And as several people have pointed out, .web is conspicously[sic] absent, even though it seems like a shoo-in.
Why do some feel the need for a .WEB TLD?
The TLD is not the correct logical place for it. It is completely redundant, the current domain model already has the capability of distinguishing a web server from a smtp or ftp server.
Consider the URI http://www.website.web
http:// - Web protocol
www - Web server
.website - Domain
.web - web tld
This is just ridiculous OTT.
What happens when these domains want a ftp or smtp server? Do they use webmaster@website.web or ftp://ftp.website.web or do we add yet more TLD's i.e. .ftp and .smtp TLD's so we have webmaster@website.smtp and ftp://ftp.website.ftp
Ah The whole idea of .web is just absurd.
Someone, somewhere is going to get that one day ...
I certainly hope not, because that is the day commercialism has finally over taken technical merit.
Re:Not retarded, fantastic!!! (Score:1)
Agent Dale Cooper "Twin Peaks"
Need for Trademarks (.tm) (Score:2)
bloodhound gang (Score:1)
not all bad then :]
t.
good names (Score:1)
Better yet, how about a .exe domain!! My hands will tremble!
(barf barf)
Re:TLD Moderation, the slashdot way (Score:2)
_____________
Re:I still want .here or something like it! (Score:1)
Re:I don't understand... (Score:1)
That being said, I don't believe it's viable to have arbitrary TLD's. It would cause even more disputes over who gets which name. And a popular TLD would need to be hosted on a solid NS. I doubt most ordinary (and yes, ultra-geeks are included here) people have the ability, bandwidth and hardware to do this.
And for the keyword idea.. It all comes down to the same as
Does this mean.... (Score:2)
(Note - only UK slashdotters will understand this. Aero is a popular UK chocolate bar).
What's wrong with .femininenapkins? (Score:1)
Do you think I'll get sued?
--
Why do you think we use names? (Score:1)
People, IME, tend to be good at associating names with things and less good at associating numbers-- which is why we name, rather than number, files... and cities and computers and children. (The only exception is the telephone system, and even there, people advertise using names of the form 1-800-FOOBAR-7.) I think we'd be losing something valuable if we changed names to numbers:
And so we rather than try to resolve the dispute, we decide they're not to be trusted with it, and lose all this? Such a move would be restricting easy access to the net to those of us who are trained to find it easy to work with and remember apparently random strings of digits. Yes, your solution works... but it appears to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Wow. (Score:1)
At least "aero" is intuitive ... the rest are pretty damn stupid.
.pro ??
Re:Some problems (Score:1)
Correction follows:
Richy C. [beebware.com]
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Re:.xxx (Score:2)
People who reluctantly agree with "voluntary labeling" are often very, very suprised what type of crap actually ends up getting labled. They're also very suprised when that labled stuff really does become difficult to find. Everyone thinks "voluntary labeling won't be so bad. They'll only label the really nasty bad stuff. They won't go overboard and label anything remotely offensive." Then, they're suprised when a movies Crash or Eyes Wide Cut gets "bad" labels stuck on.
Then, they think "well, the label is there to warn parents. Major content distributors won't start indiscriminantly filtering out anything with a label. Thats not what the labels are for!" Then, they're suprised when providers like Blockbuster and WalMart and the major theatre chains put a block on anything with the label.
If you don't think the same thing would happen with
Cool! (Score:2)
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
Re:What a huge raft of crap. (Score:1)
Re:TLD Moderation, the slashdot way (Score:2)
I mean, with
.coop? WTF? I'm thinking grocery stores, or better yet c.everett.coop - shit, I better buy that one before Mr. Surgeon General gets it!
Wouldnt
.pro. Uh, pro what? Can I just declare myself a
.name? Uh. tha'ts like having 1-800-PHONE-NUMBER.
.xxx (Score:2)
any ideas why the world's morality filter delimmas weren't solved with a simple suffix? it would have been so easy.
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Re:Who put these people in charge? (Score:1)
Oh dear. I have just realised that this has turned into a "me too" post. Bugger.
GUINNESS CAN STILL SUE .BIZ OR WHATEVER (Score:1)
domain names like guinnessbeersucks.com should be legal. until this problem is addressed, we are all slaves.
I don't understand... (Score:3)
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
Really Needed? (Score:1)
Do chickens really *need* their own TLD?
Chris Mattern
What a huge raft of crap. (Score:1)
Some problems (Score:1)
.tm is Turkmenistan (Score:1)
[TMB]
are they all clueless? (Score:1)
[SARCASM].museum? there's a broad ranging area worthy of a TLD of its own.[/SARCASM] Yes, it's great that museums could have their own web identifier, sure. But it's simply not a big enough segment of the net population to warrant a TLD. Even if there are a million museums in the world that are registering I wouldn't consider it a big enough market.
The same arguement can be said for .aero, and probably for .coop.
bureaucracy at work. *sigh*.
-chad/entropi
weak start (Score:5)
SITA (Score:1)
Given that most of the worlds airlines already have domain names, it will be interesting to see if there will be a shift to the
.sucks is the only new TLD we need (Score:1)
I'm sure you'll agree that would make life much easier for everyone.
People remember numbers? (Score:1)
Instituting this scheme would without a doubt result in numerous "real names" like services - proprietary name-to-number mapping sites that would be much worse than the current DNS system, which at least is global.
DNS needs to be updated to exclude ICANN (Score:1)
Maybe the DNS structure could be changed to shift responsibility to nationalities. One possibility may be something like 'host.subdomain.country' (similar to how it is outside the US now), where the subdomains would be '.com', '.org', etc., and optional, and designated by each country respectively. The DNS protocol could updated to append a country code to a DNS query if none was present before resolving the query or passing the query on. Which country code would be appended would depend on the physical origin of the request. The DNS works in a mannor similar to this now, and it would not be difficult to make this kind of system a standard part of how the DNS protocol works.
By making the DNS structure the same for the US as for other countries, the need for one body to administer TLDs for all countries is greatly reduced. By instituting the procedure of appending the country domain to the domain name, things are simplified and there is backward compatability.
The domain names from within the United States, for example, would look something like 'IBM.com.us' (or 'IBM.com' from within the US), 'IBM.info.us', 'IBM.net.us', or 'IBM.us'. United States government sites would look like 'whitehouse.gov.us', or 'whitehouse.us'.
Each country would be free to create and administer its own subdomain structure (for better or worse) thus releiving one organization from the task of administering TLDs for many countries. The only real TLDs would be for countries.
This, of course, would mean that an entity would have to register their domain in every country, but isn't that how trademarks work now, and isn't there an existing body of law to deal with conflicts arising from registering a trademark in use by somebody else in another country. This would releive ICANN from the task of figuring out who should be responsible for which '.com', '.biz' or '.org' TLDs for all countries.
Whether this proposal makes sense or not, it would be better for DNS to be extended now rather than have it supplanted by some closed replacement. Given the direction (or lack thereof) the administering of TLDs is taking, this eventuality is becomming more likely. There is a genuine need to update the DNS.
Re:Wasted Irony (Score:2)
Where to register? (Score:1)
Re:Control of domain namespace (Score:2)
I tend to disagree with you there. The primary function of DNS was to create a way to make it easier for humans to work with the growing number of hosts on the Internet. TCP/IP addresses were to hard to remember, so a number of systems evolved - two big ones were NIS and DNS.
That being said, what do you think would happen if you asked someone what dot-com stands for? How about dot-int? Or dot-org? You and I know, but non-technical folk? Most probably don't have a clue what they mean. I'm sure all here would agree with me on that. Maybe a UUNET type naming scheming isn't exactly the answer either, but something easier can be done - base it on simpler TLD names.
If I were a consumer and wanted to find a web site on Ford cars for example, what would I rather type that would make more sense to me? Probably
ford.cars
not
www.ford.com
Doing this rules out any other Ford company confusion because we know that we are looking for the ford company that makes cars. It also takes the hostname (typically www) out of the picture so that the user has less to type.
Is this something that can already be accomplished in DNS (ford.cars). Yes, if they added the dot-cars TLD (for example). Why not dot-travel? Or dot-family? Or dot-adult? These make sense and it would be easier for the consumer.
From experience, I can say that it is definitely possible, and would definitely be wanted by consumers.
Furthermore, we can't just dump DNS because of the two single most important uses of the Internet Email and Web addresses. We've gotten everyone used to DNS, we must figure out a way to change it into something else. I think that by opening TLDs (as opposed to limiting them), is the beginning of the reform.
Chris
-= www.opendnstech.com =- [opendnstech.com]
Re:Why do you think we use names? (Score:2)
Actually, this never happens in the UK. I don't know why it never caught on but there it is.
And so we rather than try to resolve the dispute, we decide they're not to be trusted with it, and lose all this?
It's not a matter of trust. You assume that disputes can be resolved. I say they can't. If there are two companies called "Toni's Pizzas" then one of them must backdown. Plus the reality is that lawyers have a vested interest in making suits on domain names and it is wishful thinking to say that this will ever stop or ever be fair. The richest litigant will always have too much power no matter what the rights and wrongs of the case.
In a world with 6 Billion people using the net, names simply don't and can't work. The fact that ICANN is trying crap solutions does not mean that a good solution exists.
They wouldn't be that random, if major companies and ISP's make up the first layer of the hierarchy then many numbers will start off the same, much as many phone number prefixes come up over and over again, which makes them into "memory blobs" which are easier to remember.
I am worried that the baby is in the process of drowning.
Such a move would be restricting easy access to the net to those of us who are trained
Does having to use a phone book restrict access to the telephone? Web search engines could be complemented by an online phone directory-type system.
How important is the naming system in finding sites at the moment? What percentage of sites are found through their content (ie using search engines) rather than typing in the url? I don't know but the information would be useful for this argument.
IME many (not most) people find sites by typing the name of the site into a search engine (e.g. the type "www.fish4homes.com" into altavista). Sad, but true.
Another solution would be to close down the TLDs (.com, .org etc) and enforce a multi-layered geographical system right down to town level (www.smithsbooks.bangor.ni.uk or www.smithsbooks.islington.london.uk) but: a) no one will run such a system as the amount of checking to enforce it is too much when net useage is growing as it is now, b) it actually leads to names which are probably harder than numbers to remember, and c) still leaves the question of individuals' sites in the same town open to question.
When you think about this, ask yourself "how is the current system going to work when everyone in the 1st world has their own individual webpage which is permanently connected to the net?". This day will come, web connections will come with your 'phone one day and each connection will need a name in the DNS.
TWW
What happened to .nom? (Score:2)
weave.nom maybe, weave.name -- never....
Re:Hear, Hear! (Score:2)
But at the same time only if there is a good reason for not having an apropriate geographic domain name. e.g. most of
(2) each domain must be the _only_ domain owned by a specific business or other entity (no fair buying up everything that's similar, no registering multiple identities)
There is a fine line between a company being "domain grabbing" and one which simply wishes to use it's normal trading identities. The line is especially blurred with a startup "e-business".
Re:This is just a proof of concept! (Score:2)
Now, as for the TLDs *I* think should be registered, in true "I know more than they do"
.cum - Then people who work at sex sites could casually mention that they work at "one of those
.borg - For anyone who has been assimilated... you know, Microsoft ISVs, OEMs, developers, etc...
.nut - For sites featuring rants, conspiracy theories, pictures of people's pets with captions drawn in using Microsoft Paint, etc.
.kil - For Quake servers and towns named after Dutch rivers...
.guv - For people who want to run their own countries but can't find one that will let them...
also can be used by stereotyped British butlers...
Also, since we know Aliens are among us, shouldn't we have planetary/stellar codes in addition to country codes?
For more info go to: www.wecomeinpeace.mars
Re:TLD Moderation, the slashdot way (Score:3)
Oldest? Of course not. The solution to who gets the domain will be the fairest, most equitable, most reasonable, and most common solution know to man.
The person who can afford to hire the best lawyers.
Re:More TLDs..yay...shoot me... (Score:2)
An entirely sensible policy. Have the domain name give some clue as to where the company is and where it is likely to do business. Indeed there is a story that
Re:"Abuse" of 2nd level domains (Score:2)
--
$you = new YOU;
.ass (Score:2)
I can see it now...
cocacolacaneatmy.ass
ronaldmcdonaldtakesitinthe.ass
billclintondoesnthavetopayforsome.ass
icannneedstoremoveitsehadfromits.ass
isuck.ass
microsoft.ass
Surely no one could be as asinine as to create TLDs like
These people need to walk out of their offices and talk to real human beings (not lifeless bloodsucking marketing agents) and maybe, just maybe they'll ge their heads out of their
Re:People remember numbers? (Score:2)
Use bookmarks (or your Palm pilot!); I don't remember any more URLs than I do phone numbers.
result in numerous "real names" like services - proprietary name-to-number mapping sites that would be much worse than the current DNS system, which at least is global.
Why worse? The underlying number system would still be global. I have three telephone directories here, one county, one local business and one local general. It works fine and I don't have to use it if I don't want to. If I need non-local numbers I can get them from BT. On the web search engines can provide these services. What's the big deal? The fact that DNS is is global is it's biggest problem. The entire world's namespace needs more than one or two layers of hierarchy and the current DNS isn't giving it that, and never will. Global and useless DNS is still useless.
I'm not saying this is because it was badly designed but it has been badly administered and is beyond repair. It could have worked, it should have worked, but assholes have been in control and fucked it up. Commercial interests will always do this to a system where the URLs are recognisable names (ie trademarks) and where the assignment of the names is not based on geography (whatever happened to .us?). Closing down the TLDs and leaving only the ccTLDs would help a lot, but it's never going to happen, certainly while people like ICANN are in charge.
If you think text names for hosts is a system which will work fine for the next ten years then you're mad. It can't and won't; the trouble that we're having now with the namespace is just going to get worse.
Looking further ahead, imagine a world with 3 billion sites, what are you going to do to DNS to make it work?
Make a counter suggestion, or do you really think that the current system is fine?
TWW
Re:Dot-why? (Score:2)
It looks as though ICANN's criteria as "Are we happy with the proposer operating as a TLD registry" rather than "Is their proposal sensible".
Thanks ICANN for keeping .COM #1 (Score:4)
museum: How many people will actually use that TLD?
Heck, many people can't even spell museum!
biz: redundant to
.info: Actually not a bad TLD...but certainly not a top TLD choice in my view since its appeal will be limited.
.name: Terrible!!
.aero: About as limited as
.pro: Seems redundant to
.coop: The most ridiculous TLD of the bunch...some ICANN folks flew the coop when they chose to approve this one...coop is a totally useless TLD.
Bottom line is that
Re:Is this purely a DNS thing? (Score:2)
How many Windows setups have any reference to the root servers. This is one of the things which MS has liked to pass off onto proper systems.
Re:Trademarks - the intellectual approach (Score:2)
1. TM identifier - example
2. Classification identifier - example
3. Country identifier - example
So dominos pizzas in USA would be domino.food.us.reg
In the case of a federal nation, such as the US you might need a sub national classification. Thus you'd have something like "domino.food.ny.us.reg"
Re:here's the info I compiled (Score:2)
It is hard to think of a bunch of web-companies with better business plans than the porn sites; the more popular ones also have the best technical skills and admin systems on the web; they have to to cope with the traffic. So: why no .xxx?
TWW
Re:Who put these people in charge? (Score:2)
They (*gasp*) actually do have reasons. And remember, this isn't a contest - "What would be the coolest new tld". There are proposals from individual companies to be based on their merits.
ICANN did not say they disagree with the idea behind
But please, don't take my word for it, get it from the source...
Canada? Wrong! (Score:2)
Check Tucows.ca [tucows.ca] for a list of valid
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
Last Line (Score:2)
New domains approved by the board are subject to approval by the Department of Commerce
Nice to see the 'net has become an arm of the American Corporatist army - what the hell does the Commerce industry have to do with it? Maybe thats why you wont see
Re:.web is absent because... (Score:2)
Why some obvious ones weren't accepted... (Score:5)
Apparently, it's not just a matter of their saying "gee, a .foo would be cool," but it's a matter of giving the new .foo over to the person/organization who submitted the proposal.
They dropped .xxx and .kids because the applicants weren't competent to run a registry service.
So, it didn't come down to logical divisions, but to registrars. Just like .mil is managed by one organization (DoD), so would .xxx or .kids.
Personally, I am glad ".kids" didn't make it. It's an idiomatic word. (Is it related to that infamous .cx image?). I also prefer the three-letter ones, just in consistency.
I also didn't like the .web thing. Isn't the www. convention enough? Or would Foobar Inc., need to move their web presence to some new toplevel domain?
Re:.museum?? (Score:2)
//rdj
No more names, a proposal (Score:3)
I can remember my phone number, even though it is 11 digits long with the UK area code, and my computer can remember numbers much longer than that. This is a hint to the solution. Give hosts numbers rather than names. IP addresses, of course, don't work as they change, so a central register of numbers needs to be set up, which in itself is an issue as power corrupts (see ICANN).
I'm thinking of a system where there is a string of digits separated by dots (eg 1.3412.1823), where the initial number would indicate a continent, then the following groups of numbers would be networks of machines, until the final number (1823 in this example) would be a specific machine in the second last network (3412 in the example).
The original authority would be allowed to assign network numbers in the individual continents for a fairly large one-off lifetime fee. The owners of a network number would then be free to assign numbers within their own space at whatever fee they like, but with the provision that the right to sell subnet numbers gets transferred to anyone they assign a number to. So the owner of 1.3412.1823 could assign 1.3412.1823.1 , .2, .3 etc to whoever they liked. Such reselling would be required to be on the same on-off lifetime fee basis (although the fee might be different) as the top level authority.
This way the number resolution can still work in much the same way as name resolution does now, with zones of authority and the work of resolving a number to an IP address is shared out as it is now.
With the top level fee being large, the next level would mostly be ISP's who make money back by selling on at a lower fee per number.
The separation between IPs and host "names" is maintained and ALL the crap about who owns trademarks and shit is lost. Think about it: all the disputes are gone, especially if network owners are required to assign in sequential order.
A distributed system for the very top level would be nice to prevent abuse of power, but perhaps the organisation set up to run it could be held in some sort of trust rather than being a private company. IANAL.
I personally think that something needs to be done or there's only about 5 years life left in the web before the whole thing is bogged down in disputes and namespace is saturated.
TWW
Iceburg or Icicle? (Score:2)
So how often will (or can) ICANN meet and add new TLD's?
Once a week? Once a year? Never again?
Other people have already asked, but I'm also curious, is there a technical reason to limit TLD's or is it just plain' ol' politics?
ICANN Shows its Partiality (Score:2)
Noticably lacking are any TLD's reserved for criticism of large trademark holders -- i.e. the .sucks proposal [wired.com] that would have allowed legitimate criticism sites to avoid specious trademark infringement lawsuits (remember Verizonreallysucks.com [2600.com]?)
At least it has dawned upon the sage minds of ICANN that 3-4 TLD's constitutes an artificial scarcity. Perhaps today's decision opens the door for future domains that represent broader constituencies.
Sincerely,
Vergil
Money (Score:2)
Can we say Collusion
Re:No number of new TLDs will remove the scarcity. (Score:2)
It gets worse. I got some NSI spam within the past week or so offering a discount to people who register the corresponding .net and .org to go along with their .com.
Who put these people in charge? (Score:4)
The whole point of this was to get rid of the congestion that has overtaken
No number of new TLDs will remove the scarcity. (Score:2)
What I want to know is, why bother with TLDs at all? Why not just arbitrary strings, with spaces and punctuation?
--------
Re:I don't understand... (Score:2)
.net, .com and .org added in "the mid-1990s"?!? (Score:2)
Created in the mid-1990s, indeed. Try a little fact-checking next time. (I personally remember using sites such as "ftp.sun.com" and "uunet.uu.net" in 1987.)
But they left out the TLDs that *I* want... (Score:2)
Re:.xxx (Score:3)
For example, one website that should be prevented from finding its way into any clean, god fearing home is this one [slashdot.org] -- you would not believe some of the filth [goatse.cx] and perversion [rotten.com] that is constantly being linked to from that site.
And I know that all of the hard-core anti-porn crusaders would agree with me on this, too -- I look forward to the day when viewing evil, bad, rotten sites is difficult, in exactly the same way listening to evil, bad, rotten songs, or watching evil, bad, rotten movies is getting difficult up here in Fargo, ND.
I look forward to the day when ISP's are all large, scared multi-national corporations, filtering content based on almost arbitrary labels. It works so well with the only "record stores" left around here (like Wal-mart and Target), and it works so well with the homogonized movie theatre chains, too. I feel so cacooned and protected, knowing I'll never see an NC-17 movie or buy an uncensored BloodHound gang song again. I will be even safer when I couldn't view bad websites even if I wanted to.
And I know that my definition of "bad" will be the same as yours. It just has to be! I know exactly what you shouldn't be seeing or listening too!
Re:No number of new TLDs will remove the scarcity. (Score:4)
Well, the whole market is opened up again. The domain squatters will throw a pile of money at the registrars, who will kick money back to ICANN.
And then the trademark disputes will begin, enriching the lawyers.
And most of the rest of us will be left out of the loop, 'cause we were to slow to jump in at the start.
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Re:I don't understand... (Score:5)
The real reason we don't have infinite TLD's though is that we'd just be moving the problem up a level. Instead of fighting over "foo.com", Foo Inc. and Joe's Foo Emporium will fighto over ownership of the "dot foo" namespace. And now, they'll have to compete with the Foo Foundation (formerly foo.org) and Foo University (formerly foo.edu).
No, the real solution here is twofold. We need
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Lame Names Are GOOD! (Score:2)
The main controversial one is
.web is absent because... (Score:3)
ehhhh?
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Re:The reason this is so rarely the case... (Score:2)
That damned 'making a profit' thing getting in the way of logic and ideals, again.
Seriously, what real business incentive would NSI have for enforcing TLD guidelines?
>Instead, we get crap like "Register your domain in ALL these different TLD's so nobody can steal it!"
Wow, they really messed up, huh? Instead of having the overhead of reviewing and rejecting applicants that don't qualify for a particular TLD, they simply get 3x the revenue from many customers.
Seriously (again), I agree from a logical POV that we'd be better off (the users of the internet, that is) had NSI been required to strictly enforce the distinctions between com, org and net - but it's unrealistic to criticize them for having not done so seeing as how their reason for existance is to make a profit (maximize revenue, control costs, generate a return for investors, etc).
re: wow (Score:2)
-gerbik
Re:I don't understand... (Score:2)
Interesting that the u.s. once again in/directly has its thumb on the "world" wide web....
(conspirace mode)
Re:Why some obvious ones weren't accepted... (Score:2)
It looked to me like the reason
It just seemed too ambiguous. Similar problems seemed to be an issue with other proposals, like geographic (.geo) and telephony (.tel).
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PS. This was my very first slashdot submission to ever be accepted. Woohoo!
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Re:are all these TLDs really necessary? (Score:2)
And what's up with
It also would be interesting for non-admins like me to know what would it take to have an unlimited gTLDs. I'm surprised the registrars didn't came up with that idea as there would be a whole lot of money involved in selling any kind of domain name, people would go nuts buying all sorts of combinations. Not that that would be a good thing but it would surely be interesting to watch.
Re:More TLDs..yay...shoot me... (Score:2)
Re:I don't understand... (Score:2)
Not retarded, fantastic!!! (Score:5)
This is just a proof of concept! (Score:4)
If the introduction of new TLDs works this time, maybe your favourite TLD will be introduced next time, and maybe from then on, TLDs will be introduced more often.
Also, someone asked why there has to be limits on TLDs, and not an infinite number. This is because you have to have the root-servers on the internet where a name lookup can start if you are looking up a name, and the way DNS works is to cache lookups around the net, since it is hierarchical, thus alleviating the root-servers' workload. The stability of the root-servers are actually essential to the stability of the internet as it is used today.
Re:I don't understand... (Score:2)
I *would* like to see a usenet-style hierarchy, but it's a bit late for that.
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Re:I don't understand... (Score:2)
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Re:Who put these people in charge? (Score:3)
What??? No dot-slash? (Score:3)
Of course, there is the little matter of how nice guys that don't copyright names could have trouble with infringement...
TLD Moderation, the slashdot way (Score:5)
Let me moderate them one by one:
.biz
Score 1, Redundant
A dot-com wannabe? What does this entail, other than having the people that already own dot-com trying to sue for the dot-biz? .info
Score -1, Redundant
Hmm, i wonder what this one if for? Any use i can think of for this one can be better served by info.domain.something... .name
Score -1, Silly
This is probably the worse option for "personal" domains i can think of. Let alone sorting problems with two people having the same name (who gets the domain? the oldest?), i don't really think this is going to be very popular. I wouldn't want one, would you? IMHO they should have gone for .home, .ind (for individual, or independent, or whatever you want it to mean) or something of the kind. .pro
Score 4, Interesting
This looks like it can actually be used to some effect. Of course, if it's targeted at professionals of some sort, i wonder if it is going to achieve its objectives. I see a lot of www.windows.pro domains popping up for magazines, companies, and so on. But that's probably what they want anyway, to sell domain names, right? Being useful to people is for sissies... .museum
Score -1, Troll
dot-what? Is anyone here in their right minds? How many of those are there going to be? 100? 200? 5000? What's next? dot-church? Too limited, too long, too hard to remember if there are only going to be a few of them. .aero
Score -1, Redundant
Too limited. Too self-serving. Too redundant. Except if it's meant as a domain for airheads... .coop
Score 2, Interesting
This one could be interesting, but isn't this covered by .com or .org already? It could prove limited in usage.
In general, the new domains are either redundant or too limited in usage. The criteria for appraisal of the proposals were not, in my oppinion, in the best interest of the Internet Community. ICANN could have started off a whole lot better.I always knew I was going to miss Jon Postel, i just didn't know I was going to miss him this much.
Good Point (Score:3)
- .kids [and]
.tel ... seemed too ambiguous.
Yeah, what's to stop me from putting up a website with the URL:http://sex.with.kids
http://promise.not.to.tel
Nothing can stop me. I'm evil.
.pro is really a Usenet-style name system (Score:5)
If you read the application [icann.org], the second level will be
So it is really more like a Usenet-style name system. Ex: ford.auto.pro, citibank.fin.pro, northwest.aero.pro, etc.
Hear, Hear! (Score:2)
What's needed? Well, a few things - or so, at least, it seems to me: (1) Strict rules about who can register a domain-name in a particular TLD space (e.g., a
If ICANN doesn't get its act together in these areas, moves towards national legislation and interminable negotiations about international agreements (worse messes) will be inevitable. ICANN needs to be drafting proposed legislation in all venues, worldwide, to define the Internet naming conventions, procedures, rules, and remedies.
Boo!! (Score:2)
And, they failed to create a new adult oriented TLD (which would be ENORMOUSLY useful to both the porn mongers and the concerned parents of the world).
Hmmm, let me see how hard this is:
Any of these is better than most of the crap coughed up by ICANN.
ICANN is an excellent example of what happens when you combine huge committees, lawyers, big business, and good ol' fashioned bureaucracy into one big lovable ball of everything that tries to kill off inventiveness, efficiency, common sense, personal independance, and the human spirit.
Waste of everyone's time and money (Score:2)
Nothing has been solved, pretty much. Name crowding will still happen. Hopefully the 5 new board members, NOW that they have power, might push for a faster review of newer TLDs before the next scheduled time. We'll still have squatters and RDNH occuring as there's nothing desirable in these.
Wow. (Score:2)
It seems to me like they are overspecifying the use of some domains and underspecifying the use of others. .kids is a broad domain that allows many uses, but has a contraint on it. .biz doesn't. .biz will become a cleaner .com, but so what? All it would do is prevent trademark disputes. Secondly, what will happen to sites like buy.com? If they have a trademark on buy.com, then I can register buy.biz no problem, and that will be very confusing. On the other hand, they can't have a trademark on buy, so we end up with confusion. We will get an exact copy of .com, except without personal websites. But what's to say I'm not a buisness? I've done website design for people.
The only ones I can see working are .coop and .museum. All the rest are very shortsighted and simply not thought-out. Woe for the smart and useful domains like .kids.
Re:.xxx (Score:2)
I'm so glad I have someone to decide for me. Freedom was such hard work. And I'm glad to see that you're unelected and completely unaccountable, just like all the members of the ICANN board who are currently allowed to vote.
Please send me e-mail immediately informing me of which websites are much too erotic or perverted, so I can make sure not to visit them.
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Re:.pro is really a Usenet-style name system (Score:2)
Although, the dual tiers tend to make it a bit more clunky.
It's interesting that not many people have thought of alternatives to the domain name / TLD system we have right now. Certainly it's not the optimal solution, and yet the powers that be and even the powers that don't be have given almost zero serious thought to even thinking up alternatives, let alone evaluationg and discussing them.
Re:Not retarded, fantastic!!! (Score:3)