Will New TLDs' Restrictions Negate Their Aims? 196
Kyle writes: "According to this story on Wired, most of the new TLDs selected by ICANN will be restricted. For example, .biz will sport a $2000 price tag with an annual $150 fee, and will be limited to verifiable, legitimate businesses with specific commercial intent. The .pro TLD will be used exclusively by certified "professionals," including doctors, lawyers, etc. If the point is to introduce competition for .com, ICANN might have missed the target. Might this exclusivity limit the popularity of new domains? If almost no one is allowed to use them, the general consumer will likely be unaware that they exist, and continue in their .com'ocentric mindset." Problem is, who says what's bona fide? Would officious rules like this allow eccentric, personal Web-museums (like the online LED Museum) into.museum?
Bleh. (Score:1)
It's just another form of stealth censorship, and it will be just as ineffective as all the other attempts.
The old saying that the internet routes around censorship as a form of damage only has half the picture. The internet isn't vulnerable to this crap, because there is no internet - there are just people, and computers, and the technology to connect them together.
Best solution: ignore the silly buggers. This childish manipulation is too trivial to bother over.
Check out the TLDs in the ORSC root system (Score:4)
http://www.open-rsc.org/ [open-rsc.org]
http://www.youcann.org/ [youcann.org]
Examples of the "other" domains:
http://www.commandments.god/ [commandments.god]
http://www.405.mov/ [405.mov]
http://www.bbc.news/ [bbc.news]
http://www.cnn.news/ [cnn.news]
Did anyone read the second page? (Score:2)
Well not necessarily.... (Score:1)
If the
"More Citizens Owning Guns = Less Citizens Being Vicitmized by Worthless Scum Criminals"
In fact, the folks that choose to not own are safer as long as the crooks have to guess who is armed and who is not.
Re:THERE IS ANOTHER, OLDER, CHEAPER .BIZ (Score:1)
I just popped in & registered:
www.the.biz [the.biz]
There's only one page up; I wasn't really expecting it to work. :-)
If you want to see it you'll need to set your computer as shown by:
http://youcann.org/instructions.html [youcann.org]
Not that it's really worth seeing (other than to prove it works) but once you're set, you'll be able to see loads of other stuff.
Dyim
Re:Good idea, wrong gTLDs (Score:2)
Re:Now figure this out... (Score:1)
That, and it would be so exceptionally easy to add to existing filtering software... If it's blah.porn, you can't go there with the filter active... .porn would have been a global institution, with no room for individual, local, or cultural latitude like PICS has. According to whose cultural definition would it have to be porn?
Exactly. Now what makes you think filtering is always voluntary and will always be voluntary? Also,
For a summary of my own fascinating opinions, see this post [slashdot.org].
--
Stupid Question (Score:2)
But here's a stupid question:
Why do we need TLDs at all? Do they serve any real purpose in routing? Certainly they no longer specify the type of entity that they address (hmm... maybe we need ".squat"). Why can't www.sun.com just be www.sun? Is it because they're the dot in dot-com? Jeez... just define a valid character set and a maximum length, and go nuts!
Not really (Score:1)
Yes and no (Score:1)
Oops. You're right. Fixed now. (Score:1)
You're quite right it IS (or rather WAS) a typo. The only reason nobody caught it was because it wasn't a typo in the root zone it was a type in my in-addr.arpa zone for 199.166.24. Moreso, since 199.166.24.1 has multiple A records pointing to it and mutiple PTR records (yes, it's legal, really, see RFC 2181) it never affected the operation of the root zone.
Thanks muchly for catching this, I fixed it as soon as I read this. I have long hoped the
(Don't forget I'm the same guy that created alt.sex because of a typo - see http://vrx.net/richard/alt.sex.html [vrx.net]
Re:Am I the only one here.... (Score:1)
Canada "had" a good tld system (Score:3)
The first rule was that a single entity could only have one domain name. Furthermore, that domain name had to be clearly related to your business/organisation, and as specific as possible to avoid confusion without being too hard to remember. In other words if I owned The Happy Burger Shop, I couldn't register Pepsi.ca. That obviously has nothing to do with my organisation, and I probably would be able to register Burger.ca. I'd probably have to go with HappyBurger.ca.
Furthermore, in order to register a
The advantages of this system are clear. Cybersquating becomes difficult if not impossible, and the system didn't favour those with cash. Like when mailbank.com decided to register thousands of last names and resell them. They aren't creating wealth there, they're just trying to create another middleman. Something the consumer doesn't need, and the internet should do away with.
Unfortunately, someone at the
Re:Check out the TLDs in the ORSC root system (Score:1)
Re:Check out the TLDs in the ORSC root system (Score:2)
doesn't exactly inspire confidence
Re:Everybody bitches but what are YOU going... (Score:1)
Re:Please... there are rules on the Internet? (Score:1)
InsuranceFactory.edu is pure abuse. So is clue.edu. I think someone needs to start purging the *.edu tld.
couldn't care less (Score:1)
there is not one iota of usefulness in this aside from making money. none. zero. nada. all the more reason to look at the current alternatives and maybe ...oh, i dunno, doing something about them. we are, after all, the ones who have the system by the short-n-curlies. if it wasn't for our sneaking linux in to the point where people realized it's viability and dare i say "superiority" (call me a zealot, i am), then where would it be? in the hands of hobbyists and dreamers, where alternate dns is now.
sorry, i'm just ranting. again, slashdot does a lot of whining and yet creates no mechanism to fight.
My .02,
ICANN bunch of fucken bullshit (Score:1)
Well if that's the purpose, why are these morons putting Network Solutions, Register.com, and other big registrars on their boards to make these decisions? It's like trusting the FBI to investigate themselves! It just doesn't work like that! They have ulterior motives and will only work to further themselves and prevent themselves from losing future profits. It doesn't benefit us consumers, and it sure doesn't benefit the thousands of businesses that would like to find an alternative to the current
Case in point:
$2000 to register
.web should've made it into the new tlds. Yeah Image Online is doing bad business encouraging people to "pre"-register, but so what? Delegate it to another bidder then!
Cheap at twice the price (Score:2)
And there is no point in having a new domain if there are no rules attached to it, otherwise you may as well just have the domains
Re:Raw Deal (Score:1)
More Non-ICANN URLs (Score:1)
http://www.dot-god.com/techni cal /test/surfing.html [dot-god.com]
Use the ORSC root for access.
Re:Sounds good. (Score:1)
What the
Ummm....wasn't the internet supposed to help level the playing field between the 800lb gorillas (`real business') and the shoestring entrepreneur?
Good idea, wrong gTLDs (Score:4)
It is a Good Idea(tm) to let only legitimate businesses willing to pay $2000 for one or two domain names, and not squatters collecting hundreds of these, register domain names under ".biz". In fact, it will most certainly unclutter the namespace sufficiently that the $1,000,000 price tags that some companies are now paying said squatters are a thing of the past.
But ".biz" is an incredibly stupid TLD. Imagine "sun.biz", "cisco.biz", etc. If anyting, it will only attract spammers, like flies. I.e. "direct marketing" organizations, and their ilk.
As a side note, the problem with inability to deal with squatting of ".com" (.net, .org) addresses has to do with several registrars handling these. Competition for domain name registration is Good, but no single TLD should be in the hands of more than one registrar. Why? Because they will compete for customers by lowering their prices - if one entity managed it they could actually increase the prices for registration based on the current shortage.
- Specific criterias for each TLD is Good. ".org" should be reserved for certified non-profit organizations (not per a specific government's tax rules, but per the registrar's rules). ".net" should be reserved for network service providers. ".pro" for professionals. A valid trademark for ".com". ".nothing" for domain name squatters.
- Price competition within a single TLD is Bad. Squatters can buy hundreds of domain names easily, then resell them at astronomical prices. They would not buy hundreds of $2000 names, but a legitimate business would.
- Stupid TLDs are bad. The price tag of $50000 for a TLD application filtered out common sense, and left only money left to speak. Bad idea.
-torRe:.BIZ is already in operation (Score:2)
Because freelance creation of new namespaces without centralized consensus and authority threatens the global uniqueness of the domain name system?
I'm no ICANN advocate, but it's not hard not to see registries of wildcat TLDs as fundamentally different from those guys who sell property on the moon. Hey, guess what, I'll sell .biz, too, won't that be great!
The first signs of a fractured global namespace are already beginning to show; see the recent disputes about registering Chinese character domains... It's not going to be good for anyone.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Re:Oh god, can the screw it up MORE? (Score:2)
hot.sex
wild.sex
wet.sex
gay.sex
lesbian.sex
rubber.sex
animal.sex
slashdot.sex (Nudity for Nerds, Sex that matters)
Cybersquatters would probably kill for that last one.
Re:sounds like CIRA (Score:1)
Re:Oh god, can they screw it up MORE? (Score:1)
Don't those properly belong in the *.xxx tld?
/me ducks
RFCs, Anybody? (Score:3)
Re:Please... there are rules on the Internet? (Score:4)
tell me visions.edu is a 4-year college.
then tell me what courses I can enroll in at root.edu.
Imaginal.edu looks a little suspicious too.
insurancefactory.edu? A college that does nothing but sell insurance?
people have mentioned california.edu before; it's just a portal site for every california college, but it isn't a school itself.
schools.edu is registered too.
discountproductmall.edu used to be.
clue.edu doesn't give out degrees either.
and that's just 23% of the
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
Re: .porn (Score:1)
Now it's already been said that this will make it easier to filter, but that filtering might not always be voluntary, but frankly I think that's a stupid argument.
Obviously not every porn site is going to rush to
People with 8 yr olds who cruise the net have a legitimate complaint. If current filtering solutions suck, and open source is so great, let's make an open source (including the blacklist obviously) piece of censorware.
If you want to look at it another way, isn't browsing at +1 a filtering/censoring system? Of course it's voluntary and it's open source in the sense that I know how comments are moderated.
So let's stop bitching and do something!
Re:ICANN bunch of fucken bullshit (Score:1)
You know why icann doesn't like
For the sake of our future, I hope nsi gets knocked down for good. I mean, I still can't believe it's taken more than a year and they still can't give sex.com to the rightful owner. My god, the domain was stolen! How hard is that to figure out?
Re:.XXX (Score:1)
Re:Check out the TLDs in the ORSC root system (Score:1)
Re:Fuck these assholes (Score:1)
Pretty sad when J Random Drunk Slashdotter makes more sense than an entire sober ICANN board.
Pop quiz: which ICANN board member slept all though wednesdays TLD presentations then voted on them anyway? I'm not kidding)
Re:Oh god, can the screw it up MORE? (Score:2)
Not the way ICANN set this up. What they wanted was not suggestions for new TLDs, but new monopoly registrars (for new TLDs, but with the fact of them being reisgtrars being more important than the TLDs in question.)
Am I the only one here.... (Score:5)
Re:Hardly a new phenomenon... (Score:1)
The problem with
Now how stupid is that? It's basically only true for Pepsi and such. A software developer in Canada that has a presence in only one province is unlikely to meet that criteria. At least the (unfortunately replaced)
Stop whining you idiot... (Score:1)
Now figure this out... (Score:1)
Minor correction (Score:1)
Re:Please... there are rules on the Internet? (Score:1)
But isn't that what we want? (Score:1)
Right, so sell your ICANN membership on eBay (Score:1)
Re:Why aren't they doing this *now*? (Score:2)
The only reason Microsoft still exists is due to a legal technicality. Thus avoiding damage to Mircosoft (or for that matter any other fictional entity) should not be an motivation for anything.
yes, yes it would (Score:1)
Re:Please... there are rules on the Internet? (Score:1)
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
.biz is as good as dead (Score:1)
Re:Doesn't Matter, Everyone will Register in all T (Score:2)
The sort of thing Network Solutions encourages people to do. The only solution would be something to the effect that this kind of "cybersquatter" can lose all their domain names.
Re:Now figure this out... (Score:2)
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Re:Raw Deal (Score:1)
To me it seems similar to the old arguement on whether or not Software Engineers are actually Engineers.
I can't wait to see how many thousand names Verizon tries to register when these new domains become available. I want "verizon-runs-a-lousy.biz".
May reduce trademark dillution (Score:2)
Since a .biz provides for a real business, and a .com does not, it would weaken the trademark dilution.
Remember vw.net fiasco? Now, if .net was enforced, then VW would not be able to have taken vw.net. [vwx.com]
Re:I See the light (Score:1)
Unfortunately, the masses prefer to be spoon-fed. Don't think the goal isn't to coax them into pods someday - until Neo comes.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Re:Won't work - Nothing will !!! (Score:2)
" dot-com is main street Slicon Valley and Wall Street [ny/ny] combined. Any other
dot-ohheckimtoolateoricantaffordthedotcom has minute survival chances in a market that is hooked on
dot-com. "
So, dot net doesn't mean anything to you?
Commerce via the telephone has not died out;
and relatively few telephone-based businesses
use mnemonics for their phone numbers. Why is
name dot com so important? If it were not for
the finite resource of the IP address (forcing
many web domains to share them, now and more so
in the near future), we could happily go to numeric addressing. The high profile that DNS
gets today could shift to directory services.
It's already such a mess that you can't ever assume a company's name dot com is the address
for that company. And there are many whose coporate site does not even host the sales and
support site, so, all this hype is over something
that's not even as useful as it could be.
Re:Sounds good. (Score:2)
In fact, the high price tag of
Re:Only reason Trademarks work (Score:2)
No they are protected by governments (plural). Problem is that there is one country which dislikes using it's geographic TLD. Whilst coka-cola.us (or even coka-cola.un) might legitimatly indicate a registered tradmark coka-cola.com/coka-cola.net/coca-cola.org/etc clearly does not.
Re:Nice thought, poor execution. (Score:2)
There is a simple solution. However it is probably not politically correct to ICANN. That is to make ownership of a
DNS is doomed (Score:2)
- DNS is being used at the moment as a search engine. It has no proper search criteria and attributes, though.
- It is not secured against spoofing. Anybody can easily set up arbitrary adresses or inject fake entries into the current system.
- It does not handle Unicode properly at all. Instead a number of workarounds with hideous character encodings are proposed.
- Also, the current system of maintaining the namespace is hosed.
What we really need is a viable, worldwide directory service as an alternative to DNS, and as a preinstalled default in major operating systems. LDAP has the potential. Check it out.
© Copyright 2000 Kristian Köhntopp [slashdot.org]
Re:New TLDs don't fix any namespace issues, duh! (Score:2)
If they trademark were registered in a sane part of the world then they probably could, but couldn't have 1800Flowers.com.biz. It's simply a question of what the trademark is and if such a tradmark would meet the criteria for registration in the first place.
The only real solution is to drop
There is a rump of legitimate
Re:Hardly a new phenomenon... (Score:2)
So instead you could have
dot tv (Score:2)
You can now get one from, appropriately, www.tv [www.tv]. The prices generally seem reasonable, expect for special cases, where they get ridiculous.
I was surprised. How did Slashdot miss this one?
Re:One positive outcome... (Score:2)
IMHO the system is foobar... I feel sorry for folks trying to think up new company names, or who are a little late to the Internet biz (oops, I said it
Luxury domain names should have been reserved years ago, and the extra revenue (if any) used to fund IP multicast research or something useful...
Re:Check out the TLDs in the ORSC root system (Score:3)
199.166.24.1 (ns1.vrx.net)
205.189.73.102 (ns2.vrx.net)
If you're using a real OS, just plug them into /etc/resolv.conf.
If you're stuck under Windows they even have a program that changes them for you [open-rsc.org].
I've been using them for over a year without any problem whatsoever.
Re:Please... there are rules on the Internet? (Score:2)
Oh, it doesn't break the rules. But it is a joke. Watch the presdent's analist some time (a good movie). I wasn't involved with the naming, but I talked to the folks who did it. Hell, UUNET wan't a phone compony at the time, it was all that much more amusing to me then.
No, a quite dead project. But still intresting.
Er, unless this is a new use of TPC.INT, the original use was FAXing. Drat, now that I read your RFC that's not the one. Try RFC 1528, 1529, and 1530, and also www.tpc.int...whih of corse claims to be not currently dead. But the history section says it was dead in 1994, which is what I recall.
Re:Sounds good. (Score:2)
One of the problems with slashdot is that everyone here thinks like a poor student... Oh wait...
-josh
Scrap .com/.net/.org/.edu/.mil (Score:3)
1) Sale of all subdomains of these TLDs should be halted
2) Subdomains of
3) Existing
3) Leave it upto the naming authorities in each geographics TLD as to which subdomains they wish to create/for what price etc.
This is how it *should* have been from the start... nice and clean... like any good filesystem/home directory 8-)
Si
ps. No... I'm not joking... fair play to the yanks for coming up with this Internet malarkey, but these domains are a pants idea.
Remember When the Internet Was Non-Comercial? (Score:3)
Does Anyone remember when the internet was not commercially focused, when it was about making actual information available? It may just be me, but it struck me that the whole focus of ICANN seems to be not so much how to regulate the domainspace, but how to generate more cash out of it. I would be *so* happy to see the development of an entirely non-commercial internet where I could go to seek bona-fide information free of advertisements, commercial interests, etc.
I have developed and maintained my own website (Omphalos - The Directory & Search Engine for Paganism & Witchcraft [omphalos.net]) and expanded it to provide a wide variety of information on its subjects, and it has a growing audience (~40,000 page views per month). I have done so without any thought of making a profit from the site. My only purpose is to try to provide some useful information to others out there who might be interested in the topics covered by my website. There are many other websites out there which have the same purpose and their developers have put the same sort of time into their sites as I have into mine I am sure. We are all being lost in a sea of increasing commercialization on the web. I regularly see the assumption made that if you are on the web, and own your own domain you are naturally doing so for the purpose of making money and therefore can naturally afford the costs associated with any new requirements that spring up. When renewal time for Omphalos.net rolls around I can certainly afford the $75 required, but not if they were allowed to raise the rate to $2000. Can anyone see NSI claiming that since .biz domains go for $2000 they ought to be able to raise the rate on .com domains? I can. Therefore, I fear that it might not be all that long before the relentless drive to turn a quick buck might drive me out of my own domain space entirely.
And yes, I should probably register Omphalos.info as soon as I can, but what will it cost me?
Re:dot tv (Score:2)
Slashdot didn't miss anything [slashdot.org].
.tv belongs to the nation of Tuvalu, which sold the domain administration rights to DotTV a while back -- this is not one of the "new" ICANN-approved TLDs.
Re:.biz is as good as dead (Score:2)
Wrong. Companies which consist of something more than hype will _LOVE_
See, no one needs a dozen new
You know, I expected icann to go the other way and pander to rampant commercialism. Instead, they've gone the other way. This is a good thing. All of you out there who were using the net before W95 came out, before it became a rage, before it was coopted by this maddening surge in venal pop culture, all of you will undoubtedly remember it to be a better place.
You want art?
You get the picture.
This is neither elitism the raving of a crotchety curmudgeon. This is, finally, an injection of fairness into the internet. I turned off the boob tube a long time ago. I dont want to have to yank the cable modem too.
--
Re:dot tv (Score:2)
Why aren't they doing this *now*? (Score:3)
Re:Nice thought, poor execution. (Score:2)
Which will be expensive for the corporation, especially since all of the most obvious kinds of evasion would immediatly place them in breach of contract. (i.e. they'd loose their
It's people like you..... (Score:2)
$2000 up front IS a lot of money for most small businesses, especially those just starting up (like mine) Nevermind the fact that it's tax-deductible, it's still a steep fee and I am sure it's just another way for INTERNIC and others to capitalize on other businesses' success. I am for real, I work hard, and I spend my advertising budget in places that will give me the most bang for my buck. That is why I'll never be a
The Goodie Basket Gourmet
http://www.goodiebasketgourmet.com
I See the light (Score:2)
Doesn't Matter, Everyone will Register in all TLDs (Score:3)
Jason
Re:New TLDs don't fix any namespace issues, duh! (Score:2)
The "web" was created at CERN. Which whilst an international organisation lives under the Swizz TLD.
Even if you mean the "net" that didn't stay a US only entity for very long.
Re:Ya right... Universal knowledge and worldwide P (Score:2)
Infinite TLDs ??? (Score:2)
and you know that it would irk microsoft to have to pay for something like
www.microsoft.fnord
www.microsoft.sucks
www.microsoft.myboyfriend
etc.
the possibilities are endless
THERE IS ANOTHER, OLDER, CHEAPER .BIZ (Score:4)
The
Being outside the ICANN/US Government system means it's not subject to dangerous foolishness like the horribly flawed UDRP and silly-assed "sunrise" [open-rsc.org] provision.
Re:Oh god, can the screw it up MORE? (Score:2)
Porn sites generate more money from the net than just about anything else. I, for one, would love to control the .xxx domain, speaking from an unscroupulous monpolistic point of view anyway.
Only reason Trademarks work (Score:4)
Basically what I am saying is that we the people should be our own regulators. We don't need the government reulating what is legit or not, we the people are smart enough to do this thing on our own. Free intellectual property. Let the people decide what is a legitimate source of binary data over what is not. We are not kids anymore dammit, the government should give us this right. To not give us this right is an offense to our intelligence not to mention to the progress of the democratic world.
-= Griffis =-
.BIZ is already in operation (Score:3)
http://www.biztld.net/ [biztld.net]
What the new TLDs were designed to test (Score:2)
The battle between "chartered" and "open" models has been ongoing for years, and there was no way we wouldn't have both kinds.
I believe
The
Re:Now figure this out... (Score:2)
All the government needs to do is declare an amnesty for credit card charges from Porn Sites.
Easier for the credit card companies to do this, being as there are fewer of these than governments.
Re:sounds like CIRA (Score:2)
Exactly when did Ireland and Canada drop this stupid policy of allowing anyone (including non Canadian and non Irish) organisations to register in their name space.
Where is the announcement of their returning to sensible policies. The problems with
Re:Scrap .com/.net/.org/.edu/.mil (Score:2)
At the moment no-one is checking this. With many companies using
Re:ICANN bunch of fucken bullshit (Score:2)
Without addressing the reasons for the "shortage" in the first place, without wich simply creating new TLD's is unlikely to help. Indeed the "alternative DNS" appears to have more of a clue on how to run things.
Re:.biz is as good as dead (Score:2)
THe '.com' is only catchy.. I'm not sure why it's catchy. In ye olde days of the net.. people were mostly indifferent.
I think the main thing is, the commoner sheep don't like to remember more than one starting point. '.com' is all they wanna know. They don't care what it means.
Re:DNS needs MORE restriction, not LESS (Score:2)
Mom-and-pop operations registering global
Dosn't help that places like Canada, which used to have sensible policies preventing this kind of thing, have recently dropped them
Multinationals registering every one of their product names as a *.com.
As well as in
Movie titles as domain names.
As well as TV programmes, film and TV characters, actors, bands, musicians, etc.
Even when it's not uncommon for films and TV series to carry different titles in different places.
All these things suck.
They suck from the POV of people trying to use the result, not to the people who created it.
Better use of
For some reason admitting they are in the USA is a horrible concept for many US organisations. For the "mom-and-pop's" being mom-pop.ny.ny.com.us, even if they only do business in New York City appears to be just too upsetting.
ICANN creates conflicting TLD (Score:2)
The .BIZ registry is here: http://www.biztld.net/ [biztld.net]
Re:Please... there are rules on the Internet? (Score:2)
TPC.INT anyone?
.ARPA our only hope...
Re:Good idea, wrong gTLDs (Score:2)
...
Let me get this stright, charging a lot for a domain name is a good idea, but charging a lot for a TLD is a bad idea?
Trial balloons (Score:2)
If that's the case, then how long is ICANN going to study the response (which I think probably will (or should :) be negative) before having a next round of name declarations?
Alternately, what about the possibility of going around DNS? Are there any alternative systems that could be opened up? I seem to remember one called X-something-or-other, but damn if Google won't show it to me with that... :)
Won't work - Nothing will !!! (Score:3)
So, no matter what they do, nobody will ever be satisfied.
Next, new TLDs in any shape or form are useless.
The name of the game is dot-com.
dot-com is main street Slicon Valley and Wall Street [ny/ny] combined. Any other dot-ohheckimtoolateoricantaffordthedotcom has minute survival chances in a market that is hooked on dot-com.
Therefore, all new TLDs will only result in a land-grab of imbeciles and in money burning from doomed start-ups.
Would you do business with a company that doesn't have a dot-com? Maybe to buy chewing gum [caffeine] or an auction, well if it's cheap, you might. But would you buy thousands of dollars woth of goods from someone that can't be bothered to buy their dotcom domain?
Would you trust an online service provider or consultant that doesn't have his/her dotcom? Just how valuable could that service be, if the provider didn't even have the foresight to secure his/her dotcom?
So, who would take a domain, like say, dotbiz?
People who can't afford the dotcom, right? Why would I want do business with them? If they were reliable and successful, then the owner of the dotcom would have sued them out of their dotbiz by now, claiming 'prior art' and bad business practice.
Further, there are so much more dotcom domains available than meets the eye. heck, there are over 400 languages in use on the planet and the English name space is coming up with creative new terms [i-this, e-that, 1-more, 2-less, 1-4-u, etc.] on a regular base. So by adding new domain names, thgis creativity would be stifled for a short while, until everyone realizes that new TLDs didn't solve a problem, but created severl. Then we'll all be back to inventing new words and phrases like i_1_2_yell.com. Apart from that English is probably the language that assimilates new and foreign language words the easiest.
So, we are unlikely rto really ever run out of dotcom names.
Of course, the no-brainer names for people who have problems to articulate in their first language will be incresing in price on an ongoing base. But so what? Does it affect anyone here if someone makes a gazillion for iknewitfirst-dot-com? Aren't most people just pissed off that they didn't do it themselves, when they hear about a cybersquatter making a killing?
I think, there should be laws against taking someones dotcom brand and registering similar names only to sell it back to the original owner.
Remember the first guys that registered a go2...-dotcom? I think they should own the rights to all domain names that have a go2 in them. They had the idea first and should have the right to claim 'prior art'.
But they can't, because they are a bunch of young techies that had no idea what gold-mine their idea could be. Then came Go2Networks, snapped them all up, sold out to Disney and recently the people who can demonstrate that they registered the first ever domain name that had go2 in it received a letter from WIPO...
So, coming full circle, while Slashdotters love to trash issues, it seems that most of them miss the point. Copyrights, Open Source, Domain names, Legal system, they all fit in the same catgory - "things to be urgently reviewed"
While I do not share the script kiddies' hostility towards ICANN/M$/Business/their-mum, I do think that ICANN completely missed the picture [again]as well and tried to solve a problem that didn't really exist by isolating incidents and studying them in an artificial surrounding - the best recipe for questionable scientific results.
Instead of yelling and raining mayhem, Slashdotters should have combined forces and mailed ICANN when they first said that new TLDs will be introduced. Instead of isolating the fact that big-bad-corp is likely to benefit, we should have tried to explain to ICANN why it is they are missing the point and what potential damage they might cause.
Sure, we should have a dotsex or dotxxx and then make it law that adult material has to be on those TLDs. Would be so easy to please everyone, if people would put their heads together and talk instead of bumping them all the time.
If dotsex was the law, no dotcom would be permitted to ever display any adult material whatsover - and it even fits with the first ammendment...
I can not see any solution to the problem - which wasn't really there until everyone tried to fix it aprt from a drastic one that would require a complete system overhaul.
Unless IE6, 7 or 8 has it's own embedded system that resolves any type of entry to the closest matching IP [provided IPv6 is widely spread to permit huge numbers of new IPs]; and that our 24/7 connections are fed the latest IP updates on an ongoing base, dot-com will be Fifth Avenue and everything else will be slums.
Nice thought, poor execution. (Score:3)
All this is a good thought, but ICANN has screwed the pooch (or the average person in this case).
The TLD will compete not only by offering extra space, but additional prestige: dot-biz domains will cost $2,000 to register and $150 to maintain.
The higher price means that only serious registrants will be getting dot-biz domain names.
So, someone who can't afford the higher price is automatically considered as a registrant that is not serious? And will a tld like .biz really mean extra space? Costing what they do, mostly established companies and companies with a bunch of cash will buy domain names. These same companies will already own the same .com name or buy it at the same time. While it is technically extra space, I think we will mostly see the same names registered to both .com and .biz.
If they were really serious about alleviating the shortage of domain names, they would have provided a tld for the average person and/or business.
Get this through your head.... (Score:3)
Re:Why aren't they doing this *now*? (Score:3)
Ah, but they haven't left out TM's at all. Every proposed TLD has both a sunrise provision for TM holders and adopts the flawed UDRP.
All they have done is hand it over to the megacorps, just like they've done with .com/net/org. They haven't opened up the name space one bit. The individual dn holder is still screwed and Joe Ford would have to prove he's a professional to get the name. Nothing's changed except maybe the price goes up.
The .BIZ tld that has been in the ORSC rootzone is $6.00 and has one restriction. You can't transfer it. - i.e., don't register it if you intend to sell it, 'cause you can't. The same goes for .online and .etc. - all $6.00.
The idea is to open up the name space and give everyone a chance. There is no UDRP. It will take a court order to lose the name, and then the only choice is deletion (cancellation). No transfer. No supra legal body to take the name away. You register it, you use it.
But! Here's another twist... It is finally up to DoC as to whether ANY of them are entered into the legacy root. Don't forget that. It ain't over yet. There are already challenges from Congressmen - probably more coming.
If you want freed up name space, you're gonna have to go to the ORSC root system. It's like it should be.... :)
-Leah-
Oh god, can the screw it up MORE? (Score:5)
It's official, ICANN is useless.They're just as useless as they were before they made any decisions.
Re:Scrap .com/.net/.org/.edu/.mil (Score:2)
The problem of .com, .org etc is nothing to do with the globalness or otherwise of the owners, it is to do with creating enough namespace for smithsbooks.co.uk and smithsbooks.co.us to exist without smithsbooks.com automatically capturing 90% of all people trying to get the website of their local bookshop. It is this that forces companies outside the US to buy [mywebsite.co.ccTLD] and also [mywebsite.co.COM] (and now they also need to buy [mywebsite.BIZ)], which further pollutes the namespace.
I note that telephone numbers style URLS would work without lawyers getting involved or Nike leaning on people running Greek mythology websites, or McDonalds being given ownership of the name McDonald on a global basis and tough shit if you're Scottish.
As .com gets more and more
saturated, .com itself will naturally split into subdomains, run by whoever owns the domain, and competing amongst themselves
by price and services (It's already happening, really).
Where is it happening already? Why would it work if it did? Do you think the public generally know what to do if they type [siteIwant].com into their browser and get [siteIdontwant].com? Are you suggesting that they'll automatically try [siteIwant].someISP.org and then [siteIwant].someotherISP.org etc. until they get the right one? Is that what you call a working DNS?
Sheesh.
TWW
Please... there are rules on the Internet? (Score:3)
These rules will be adhered to about as strictly as all the others.
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.