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The Internet

No One Wants The Not-Coms 281

Posted by timothy from the dot-whatever dept.
angkor points to this Siliconvalley.com article about companies not jumping for the newfangled TLDs like dot-biz. "This is delicious revenge for all the spam I've gotten reminding me to reserve new domain names now before they're all gone ... ." Besides the nice sound of "dot com," perhaps the restrictions surrounding the new official TLDs help to prevent them selling like hotcakes. The world won't be fair until the LED museum and similar sites are offered -- No, given! -- .museum addresses.
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No One Wants The Not-Coms More

No One Wants The Not-Coms

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  • I thought these looked like glitz anyway, I get so much spam from people who use names like biz99891 that I'm more inclined to think .com or .co.uk means something, well, a little more anyway than cobco.biz


    My $0.02

  • Who wants those domains anyway? If people would be creative with their domain name ideas, they can still find stuff out there. I just hope they don't make any more of those James Dean .tv commercials because they are NOT "cool".
    • Yeah, well, .tv is a whole nother .scam, the country sold, granted or whatever from Tuvalu, (reminds me of how I'm supposed to be impressed every time I see [AS SEEN ON TV] on something), but there's already enough TLDs around to cover everything, unless you're one of those who covets chintz.


      Then again, it's MHO, perhaps there's people in the world who think it _is_ cool, after all, Home Shopping, QVC, et al, continue to thrive selling the stuff you once had to venture to garage sales to find.

  • I was told over a year ago, that the great domains were already gone. So, to prove a point, I went a grabbed a "good" domain. My wife now runs a small profitable dotcom using the name...

    I'm sure I could do it again in the .com space.

  • It's easy to see why nobody is buying these (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Infonaut ( 96956 ) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Tuesday September 18, 2001 @07:14PM (#2317932) Homepage Journal
    1) It's obviously just an excuse for the domain registrars to make more money.

    2) Web users don't grok it. Let's face it, most Web users think AOL is the Web. They don't know about .gov or .org, they don't even know .mil exists, and if you throw a .ru or a .uk at them, they can't cope.

    3) Would you want to have your company at: mygoofyasscompany.biz? It just sounds so.. so.. 1990s!

    • I think that, more importantly, these new domain names don't add anything. .biz provides no useful semantic information. It's not like someone would say, "hmm, I'm not looking for a (.)company, I'm looking for a (.)business." Moreover, since the target market is companies, they already are likely to have .com names, thus making this redundant.

      This is the equivalent of adding .com2 and .com3 -- nothing useful.

      .kids or .sex or .personal or .protest would be useful. These are categories that aren't simply mirrors of existing TLDs.
      • I mentioned that to someone at work and he said he didn't think it was a good idea, as that makes things easier to filter out (or attack). I'm not saying I want my kids looking at pr0n, but I don't want a university or cable company or library (places where information should flow freely, even if it is jiggly bits) just banning *.sex I also don't want the spammers targetting the *.kids domains as they are "easy" targets....
        • since the target market [for .biz] is companies, they already are likely to have .com names, thus making this redundant.

        Redundant, and yet strangely compelling and lucrative... ;)

        Really, a going .com can't afford not to have .biz, as it weakens their brand and signals that the .com might be snatchable. .biz is a tax, a doubled renewal free, pure and simple.

      • This is the equivalent of adding .com2 and .com3 -- nothing useful.
        Ouch! Due to the fact that .pc is sucky, making .com2 and .com3 would lead to that old .irq namespace conflict. I'd rather get a domain under the .usb TLD.
      • Why not get a .pn domain instead? Yes, that's right, a country founded by the mutineers of the HMS Bounty has its own domain. Here's the page you need to go to to get it:


        The Domain Name Registry for [government.pn]
        Pitcairn Island!

        Our aim is to bring the benefits of the Internet to Pitcairn Island, and to bring Pitcairn Island into the Internet community. We look forward to the day when the schoolchildren on Pitcairn can "surf the Net" just like kids from schools in the big city.

  • just wait.. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by matrix0040 ( 516176 )
    it's all a matter of getting used to it. for more that half the ppl out there .com=internet

    so it'll be some time before ppl begin recognizing these new TLDs. Slowly but surely they'll become as well known as .com and then they'll be a rush for that. So just wait.

    • Re:just wait.. (Score:2, Funny)

      by k_187 ( 61692 )
      I was talking to my younger brother (14)about this(new TLDs, .tv, .shop ...) and his exact quote was "that's stupid, can't they just get .coms?" I think that says a lot.

      "The Best Argument against democracy is a 5-minute talk with the average voter"-Churchill

    • About a year ago I was trying to set up a "Reply-To" address for my Sprint PCS Wireless Web Email©®. After many attempts I called their support line and got transfered to a "web support specialist".

      "What address are you entering?"

      "foo@bar.chi.il.us"
      "That's not a valid address. You need to use a real one. You know, one that ends in '.com'."

      At this point I'm afraid I managed to use at least six of the seven words you can't say on TV... (BTW, that wasn't the problem at all; their "Reply-To" mechanism was and as far as I know still is demonstrably broken for any address.)

  • ...namely, for my BESM-6 [mailcom.com] museum? Well, it's more of a nostalgia page, but anyway.

  • Funny... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tcc ( 140386 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2001 @07:16PM (#2317941) Homepage Journal
    I've reserved a few .biz for the company where I work, and I've received an email today sounding like "you've been challenged to another apllicant with IP trademark and yadi yadah... (basically he payed the extra for the IP claim). And now, from what I understand, I would have to send in the trademarks papers (or #s) and all that stuff, plus (guess what) pay extra fees... for what... .BIZ? oh right, and then .buizness will come out, .company, .whatevertomakemorecashquiquickreservenow, I simply said 2 words to resume my application: F*ck it! (ok ok, "forget it!" was more like it :) )

    I might as well be creative creating a new .com than going thru all that hassle, heck if I want to go thru that kind of problem, might as well negociate the .com I want with current holder (friendly buy or attack), it'll round up to the same thing with all the legal fees and trademark claims added up.

      • And now, from what I understand, I would have to send in the trademarks papers (or #s) and all that stuff, plus (guess what) pay extra fees... for what... .BIZ

      I agree with your stance, but aren't you worried that if you don't defend .biz/.bob/.trademark then you're setting yourself up for a snatch of your .com?

      I don't mean that you'll lose it, but have you weighed up the costs of having to defend it?

  • .com will be around for a long time to come (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dbolger ( 161340 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2001 @07:17PM (#2317944) Homepage
    Mostly because the new extended TLD's are just so damn ugly. Dot-Com, Dot-Net, Dot-Org are beautiful, aesthetically pleasing prefixes, that clearly explain what the website is about (at least, they used to till everybody and his stepson started getting them). Dot-Biz just seems too gaudy to be true, and Dot-Museum? Please! Some of these are just so ridiculous its untrue! Dot-Name? Where on earth is that going to go? Porn sites like BitchWhatsMy.name? That's about it. To be honest, the only one of the new additions I even find mildly acceptable is .info, and even thats stretching it. All in all, I'll pass on these thank you very much, and stick to the three original - and best, TLDs.
    • So... .gov, .mil & .edu? :)

    • ".name" is exclusively for registering personal names, on the form "firstname.lastname.name" or nicknames, and e-mail adresses on the form "firstname@lastname.name". So far the interest has been huge.

      (ObDisclaimer: I work for the company administrating .name)

        • ".name" is exclusively for registering personal names, on the form "firstname.lastname.name

        Ouch. I'd never even considered registering just surnames, then reselling all the third level given names. I wonder who's got smith.name.

        • Noone. You *can't* register just surnames.

          Contrary to .com/.net/.org, where ALL of the 5000 (and probably many more) most common surnames in US has been taken, and where your chance of getting a firstname@lastname address or firstname.lastname address is completely dependent on the whim of the owner, under ".name" noone can buy just the lastname and deny people access to it.


          • Noone. You *can't* register just surnames.

            Then, I suppose the many other thousands of latecomers to .name registration will be disappointed to find

            john.smith.name
            is already taken?

            • Then, I suppose the many other thousands of latecomers to .name registration will be disappointed to find john.smith.name is already taken?

              Congratulations, welcome to the world of marketing. You promote some bit of fluff as a 'must-have'. Then create an artificially scarce resource to scare consumers into purchasing in the offchance they may use it in case they 'lose out'. I doubt anyone will be disappointed to not get a .name, it's a pretty staid TLD and only of any use as a vanity address (for 99% of people their work email address is the only thing they'll ever need). Those that want vanity domains will probably rather think up imaginative names using the existing TLDs (not sure what my phillip.co.uk says about how imaginative I am :-))

              Phillip.

            • Of course some people will. But even though there are some very common names that a lot of people have, most people have relatively rare names. In the US for instance, more than 80.000 lastnames are included in the US census. The remaining lastnames doesn't get in because they are too rare. Combine that with thousands of firstnames, and most people will get either their name, or something reasonably simple.

              Obviously john47.smith.name isn't as attractive as john.smith.name, but it's still a lot better than a lot of the options out there.

              And in some countries, such as France, the number of lastnames in use are close to a million.

            • You *can't* register just surnames [...] noone can buy just the lastname and deny people access to it

            Uh, wait... how does that work then? You have to have a first.last.name? Doesn't that prang the whole top/second/third level domain heirarchy? Didn't you give an example of firstname@lastname.name? And what about madonna.name? And isn't one explicit intended use of .name for nicknames, which tend to be one word? Who's monitoring and enforcing non-abuse of 2ndLD .names?

            By the way, thanks for all the informed responses on this issue, vidarh, it's appreciated. Do you have a link to an idiot's guide to .name?

            • I'd suggest looking at www.gnr.name [gnr.name], which is the official registry site.

              Essentially the registry offers e-mail forwarding on firstname@lastname.name adresses, and that is why you must register third level names for domains, so that everyone can share the second level for e-mail adresses.

              There's no monitoring of abuse of second level names, but there is a dispute resolution policy that require you to prove that you have the name (or something reasonably close to it) if someone claims that you are infringing on their trademark.

              For nicknames, it is intended that you must still use two levels. So you could register bill.clinton.name even if your name is william.clinton.name, but you wouldn't be able to register just bill.name

              Other combinations are allowed as well, as long as it's something you are "commonly known as". So it could be argued that commander.taco.name would be a valid registration.

              Anyway, the registration guidelines are only enforced if someone formally challenge your registration. But registering ronald.macdonald.name or mickey.mouse.name would most likely be a bad idea unless that's really your name :)

      • According to this [icann.org], you can't register a second level .name domain at all, so bill@gates.name is impossible. (Or has the policy changed since July?)


        It looks like you can get around it if you have a multipart last name, though, like osama@bin.laden.name. Speaking of which, did they not even stop to coinsider cultures that don't have a distinct given_name+surname format?


        -Ed


        All your qa'eda are belong to US!

        • You're both right and wrong. You can't register a second level domain name. But you can register second level e-mail forwarding. It's exactly to be able to enforce sharing of the second level addresses that this was done.

          If it was possible to register gates.name, you'd have to deal with that registrant to get bill@gates.name, and you'd be screwed if that registrant didn't want to share.

          Instead you can register bill.gates.name and bill@gates.name separately, and have bill@gates.name forwarded to whatever account you want.

          Look for the e-mail forwarding service in the ICANN documents.

        • One more details: Yes, cultures without given name/surname has been given some thought.

          The general rule is that you'd have to use a hyphen, or write the separate parts as one.

          So to use your example, it would be osama@bin-laden.name, or osama@binladen.name.

          Of course some cultures doesn't even use surnames, or use the surname first and the given name afterwards.

          So you'd be allowed to register smith.john.name if you'd like to. Or foo.sonof-bar.name

          It's not ideal, but it's the first try on a namespace purely for personal use, and after all if your name is too common or too difficult to fit into this scheme, you still have the option of a lot of other TLD's. Noone is being forced to use .name for personal names. .name is just another alternative that may give people more choice, and for most people hopefully a logical naming system.

  • Lets just give everyone a number.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by PopeAlien ( 164869 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2001 @07:17PM (#2317946) Homepage Journal
    .. How about an IP address, assigned at birth.. Thats where you can host your site. Of course you always have jealousy over the really cool IP numbers, but hey, No copyright problems.

    • Re:Lets just give everyone a number.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by tswinzig ( 210999 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2001 @07:33PM (#2318005) Journal
      .. How about an IP address, assigned at birth.. Thats where you can host your site. Of course you always have jealousy over the really cool IP numbers, but hey, No copyright problems.

      Yeah, but the real question is, do you assign one or two IP addresses to Siamese twins?
    • I propose a ".ip TLD". (Unless ip is a country?)

      Then you get the best of both worlds. Easy-to-remember DNS names, and the uniqueness of an IP address!

      127.64.156.23.ip
    • How about your ssn? 123.45.6789 oh, wait, they're running out of these and can't wait to recycle the ones from persons deceased. Well, maybe the SSA will re-do those, too, and cause widespread confusion 8-)

      Seriously, when I first started on the net I knew more sites by IP address than by name, now I can hardly remember any. The neat thing then was looking at an address and knowing it was where it was from. Don't have much of a clue anymore with the way .com can really be pretty much anywhere in the world. Same would happen with the new TLDs, too, I guess.

      It would be pretty neat to see an ibm.museum site, but probably run by some pr0n twink, as all these new TLDs are really for, that and making $$$ money, because ABC, CBS, IBM, AMR, DOW, etc all would need to glom onto them before the pr0n twinks and scam artists.

      Hello from the President of IBM.biz,
      We are offering new systems, software, support and a lifetime guarantee, just like major corporations use all over the world, all for $1000. Please charge to VISA, MC, DISCOVER, AMEX, including your preferred shipping address.

      Harrison Fnord, CEO IBM.biz

      e.g. First National Pr0n of Nebraska, Cobbco Pointy Sticks of West Lompoc, Starch Pressed Sock Co. of Greater Milwaukee
      Intergalactic Bizness Makers, co., PO BOX 2, Pilasand, UAE

    • How about an IP address, assigned at birth.. Thats where you can host your site. Of course you always have jealousy over the really cool IP numbers, but hey, No copyright problems.

      Sounds good in theory, but if the doctors had it thier way, they'd lease you a DHCP address or even worse use PPPoE. Oh and you'd better not be listening for any conversations, you may only initiate them, or you will violate your TOS.
    • I know exactly how that feels...

      My social security number is 486-65-4324. I was jealous of my collegue, Bob Andrews, who has 777-66-6667, which is made of only 2 different types of digits AND is PRIME!

      Now I know Bob will get a better I.P. address too. Some people... they're just born with everything. Lucky bastards....
    • One number =

      -website (if accessed through HTTP, etc.)
      -ftp site
      -email address
      -telephone (portable of course)
      -mailing address (Post office would do a DNS lookup for your current physical address... no more forwarding!)

      It would make it pretty easy to remember ONE number for each person, instead of a separate email, phone, address, etc. Maybe too easy to track someone though...

      MadCow
  • Of course no one is buying those TLDs, haven't you heard the slow down of the .com bloom since last year? And with all those gloomy forecasts for the next few years, good luck trying to sell them off. Beside with the current laws most companies are probably automatically entitled to their tradenames. Want to bet how far you can go with amazon.biz before being sued?

    I suspect timothy just want a chance to slip in that link to the LED museum, which is much more interesting than the main story ;-)

  • Not surprising.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dregoth ( 84089 )
    Right now basically the new .biz is just a tax on the successful .com companies that are having a hard enough time as it is. If they did get one, it would be to forward it to their .com address anyway. It might remove some of the cruft from .net though.

    Perhaps in a few years when VC get eager to dump money around and new startups are made that will start with a .biz.

    Look at the .tv that was bought for tv programs to use is basically a link to their .com if they have one at all.
  • On a commercial: "Just log onto companyname.biz"

    "Honey, go look at that web site that they just talked about.

    "Okay."

    Fires up AOL
    click click click (companyname.biz.com)

    "It doesn't work!!" I'll never buy anything from them!"
    • This is sadly quite likely.

      I have a .com domain that is the same as .co.uk domain. I get large amounts of email for people at the company in the UK. Not only from people outside the organisation (who have typed .com without thinking) but also from people inside the organisation that have registered at web sites with .com instead of .co.uk.

      These people don't even know their own email address!

  • acronyms...gheez (Score:4, Funny)

    by GutterBunny ( 153341 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2001 @07:23PM (#2317966) Journal
    I'm going to put in for the .tld TLD

  • not as sexy (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dun0s ( 213915 )
    .biz .info .somemoneymakingtld will never, in the mind of the public, be as sexy as a .com. How can it be? .com is the internet to so many people the same way that if you don't start a web address with www. then they will put it on regardless.

    Apart from the CC domains which are good for country specific sites these new tld's don't really trip off the tongue that easily either. .biz just sounds a bit unprofessional i guess. As for .museum and .coop why can't they use .info and .org seeing as that is what they are. and why is there a .pro when they could use the new .name for a personal site or .org/.com for a professional ORGanisation or commercial site. Ok, so .com is overloaded but thats just tough, come up with something origional damn you marketing people.

    So, to summerise my post... .com is the only thing the masses recognise and these new tld's just sound a bit shoddy when you say them out loud.

    ok. bad post but it is late here ok.

    • Re:not as sexy (Score:2, Insightful)

      by terri rolle ( 413434 )
      .biz just sounds a bit unprofessional i guess.

      You ain't kidding. I have an instant negative gut-level reaction to it. To me the name immediately conjures up images of multi-level marketing schemes, MAKE MONEY FAST scams, and other seedy to-good-to-be-true business ventures.

      At this point it is difficult to imagine .biz being a favorite of anyone but infomercial producers and spamware dealers.

  • The new TLDs won't take off 'till we get at least some of the following

    .XXX (duh)

    .AOL (when this comes then AOLers will be truley locked out of the web)
    .news (It just sounds good)
    .KIDS ( For kid safe sites only)
    .M$ (you will need to use this for your site to be usable under future explorer)
    .ETC (for folks more creative than me)
    • Yeah, I can see it now...

      HTTP://MYHOMEPAGEISCOOL!!!!!!!!!!.AOL

      http://etc.etc.etc.etc...

      and of course the pedos will immediately start punching in

      http://hot.nekkid.kids

      Ack!
    • > ...text...
      >.KIDS ( For kid safe sites only)
      > ...text...

      Yes, because the .com, .org, and .net top level domains have been administered and enforced so well so far, let's have more TLDs for them to enforce! :)
    • Um, and how does a "kids" TLD help? It's trivial for a 8 yr old to circumvent... and would create an incredibly huge bureacracy just to make sure it wasn't abused. The AOL and M$ has to be a joke, but the rest are rather...hmm, how to be polite... dumb? TLD's should be created in such a way, that they have meaning, and can be used by at least a large minority of any kind of user. Instead of news, which a few newspapers and tv news shows could use, maybe a dot project, which would be usable by many open sourcers, and even others. Or a TLD for vanity/personal sites (I haven't been able to come up with a wording/lettering for this yet, but maybe someone is more clever than I?)
    • .CON (get-rich-quick schemes, "free X in your e-mail" sites, miracle cures. . .)

      On second thought, we'd run out of those real quick too.

  • If people arn't queing up to buy .info then I'll bet that very few people are buying the new.net domains.

    The premise of new.net seems to be get enough people pointing their DNS systems to hit your server and you don't need to be in the ICANN root. Problem is that the domains only have a 5% probability of working for a given net user.

    I wouldn't give a @#$^^ for new.net except for their paid flacks popping up arroung the net to shill for them. The scam seems to be they get a bunch of tasty names then shill endlessly in an attempt to get the new.net root incorporated into the ICANN one so their tasty names suddenly become worth squillions of dollars.

    • Well, I'm kinda doing the same thing. Just that my domains will forever and always be free... at least until ICANN has me shut down on some trumped up charge. LOL

      No, I take that back. Even more important than free domains and intelligent TLD's, is the campaign to convince people to run their own bind, so that they have control over what they see. Pointing resolv.conf at whatever alternic, and letting them dictate what you see is just asking for trouble.
    • I wouldn't give a @#$^^ for new.net except for their paid flacks popping up arroung the net to shill for them.
      The big problem I have with them is that they think it's necessary to fsck with your IP stack. AFAIK, they don't use standard DNS; for their system to work, you need a DLL that gets called before the standard name-resolver DLLs. If it somehow gets screwed up, you're stuck with hacking the registry (in a non-trivial manner...been there, done that) to clean up the mess as it can leave your computer unable to resolve any names.

      If you noticed that the above is somewhat Windows-centric, you're correct...with a system like this, would new.net's domains even be accessible from other systems? If they were cross-platform, they would just stick their DNS server ahead of whatever others you're using, whether in /etc/resolv.conf, TCP/IP properties for whatever NIC you're using, etc.

      Combine that with their getting software vendors to bundle the new.net DLL as "foistware" and they can FOAD, for all I care.

  • Three cheers for the stupid people! (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Every once in awhile they do something stupid that has unexpected positive side effects. The less they like alternatives to .com, the happier I'll be. This will serve to keep 'em all in the .com corral with all flash and flim-flam they love so much.

  • No Interest (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fat Casper ( 260409 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2001 @07:41PM (#2318036) Homepage
    There isn't anything beyond .com. Look around you- the Post Office is usps.com [usps.com] (I know .gov works too, but they have .com painted on the sides of their trucks). The Army is a .com [goarmy.com] too, as is the National Guard. [1800goguard.com] The Post Office is ahead of them- neither one of them has it wired to a .mil. I really like one of the police [seabrookpd.com] departments in my area.

    If the .govs and .mils feel like they need to be .coms, why the hell does anyone think actual companies would want anything else? Does anyone here know of any .edus that use .com? I think the .orgs seem to stick to .org pretty well. Come on- if I want info on something, I'll find their site and look for info there, not do a separate .info search.

    • your PD would probably have to be something like:
      seabrookpd.city.state.us which no one can remember (most peoples eyes glaze over after the 2nd dot) so .com makes sense there, my school district is lausd.k12.ca.us, most people can't remember that! the teachers can't remember their own email addys!
      • Well, ignoring the mismanagement of the US ccTLD, it still illustrates how retarded the average person is. Why have dot com at all, if it's truly universal? Why not leave that off, and make it even simpler? Oh, that's right, people do, and Intestinal Exploder fills it in for them. Duh
      • your PD would probably have to be something like: seabrookpd.city.state.us which no one can remember

        Well, I would hope that anybody in that city would be able to remember at least the ".city.state.us" part of the name. And, in that relatively small namespace, there should be no problem assigning the name "police" to the local police department.

        I think the DNS system needs to be re-worked to use deeper sub-domain paths. It just doesn't work to have everybody in the world fighting over a small number of flat namespaces (especially when the holder of a trademark gets to claim that substring in every TLD, past present or future). Adding more TLDs is just making the problem worse.

        Here's one possible alternative:
        - Each TLD would be a category, like ".com" for businesses, ".org" for non-profit organizations, ".ind" for individual people's homepages, etc. Categories would overlap as little as possible, so that any registrant would clearly "belong" to one of them.
        - Most names could not be registered directly within the TLD. Instead, they would be registered at a geographic sub-level corresponding to the scope at which the registering entity existed.

        So, a local business "ABC Carpet Cleaning" would be able to register the name "abc-carpet-cleaning.vancouver.bc.ca.com" while a fedarally-incorporated business could register "aircanada.ca.com". A different local business in Toronto could register "abc-carpet-cleaning.toronto.on.ca.com" without creating any conflicts. Businesses that had operations in several countries would be allowed to register in the TLD, like "coca-cola.com".

        To save some typing, a user's browser could support an abbreviated notation like "circuitcity_com". The DNS system would first try to match "circuitcity.vancouver.bc.ca.com" (or whatever the user's local context was), and would then look for matches all the way up the tree: "circuitcity.bc.ca.com", "circuitcity.ca.com", "circuitcity.com". If there were multiple matches, a page could pop up asking the user which one he wanted. Frequently visited sites would be in the user's bookmark file anyway, so the length of the name wouldn't be an issue.

        Anyway, it's an thought. Maybe somebody already wrote up an RFC on this, or wrote a long essay explaining why it's a stupid idea. I haven't looked.
      • your PD would probably have to be something like:
        seabrookpd.city.state.us which no one can remember (most peoples eyes glaze over after the 2nd dot) so .com makes sense there, my school district is lausd.k12.ca.us,
        most people can't remember that! the teachers can't remember their own email addys!

        How on earth do people remember postal addresses...
        also you end up with www.somelongwindedproductdescriptionoradvertisings loganorevensomethingnotacompanyinthefirstplace.com and that is less confusing that doing things the right way?
    • I think the .orgs seem to stick to .org pretty well.

      Perhaps, but not all of them belong there either. The city I live in uses a .org: http://www.hamilton-city.org/ [hamilton-city.org].

    • The Army is a
      .com [goarmy.com] too, as is the National Guard [1800goguard.com].
      Aren't those mainly recruiting sites? Comparing the Air Force's .mil [af.mil] and .com [airforce.com] sites, one of them seems aimed more at real info about the Air Force (what it is, what it's done, what it's doing, who's calling the shots, etc.), while the other looks like something that might've been put together by an ad agency or a marketing department (sign up now!).
      I really like one of the
      police [seabrookpd.com] departments in my area.
      I thought it a bit strange at first that Metro [lvmpd.com] considered itself a dot-com. Then again, I guess they figure it's easier to remember something short like that than something like www.lvmpd.co.clark.nv.us (which would stretch all across the trunk of their squad cars if they wanted it to be readable). The .us domains are laid out logically enough, but the hierarchical structure is probably too much for your average drooling idiot to remember.
    • is actually the address of the army.

      www.goarmy.com is essentially the recruitment address - it's where they want you to go if you're interested in joining. .mil has infomation on bases, press releases, info for current soldiers...
  • ...noneofyour.biz
  • I haven't read too much on the TLD's, but I was under the impression that one of the points of the new TLD's was so that if some company had a mangled domain name like the the'company_name'inc.com, they had another opportunity to get a real one 'company_name'.biz. So I'm glad to see that the companies that have a .com are not scooping up all the .biz's.

    Although I guess if they do become popular, all the dot com's will pull the same legal crap that got them their domain name from those other places when they originally applied??

    Kid_A
  • of trademarks, that they made dot com synonymous with the Internet.

    Indeed, most of the current problems are due to the authorities perverted and twisted sense of protectionism towards big business trademarks.

    The solution to the trademark and domain name problem is hidden by authorities to abridge free speech.

    The United States Department of Commerce violates the First Amendment - WIPO.org.uk [wipo.org.uk]
  • The real reason that there is not a rush to the new TLD's is because of prestige. Having a .com tld implies a level of establishment. Everyone will know that the .biz is the new kid on the block. Given a choice between ibm.com or ibm.biz, there is no doubt that the .com has a greater social value in today's climates.

    It is almost as if the .com's are the established, knowledgable, and better places.

    gus

  • Nobody knows them (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kanasta ( 70274 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2001 @09:32PM (#2318152)
    No users know about these new TLDs or any businesses under them. No businesses will register any of these if they know no user is going to know where to find them.

    Plus, no business would dare register under one of the new TLDs unless they owned the .com version. It's guaranteed they'd face a lawsuit from the .com owner, and we all know in these cases the money always wins.
    • Plus, no business would dare register under one of the new TLDs unless they owned the .com version. It's guaranteed they'd face a lawsuit from the .com owner, and we all know in these cases the money always wins.


      I think this is the biggest reason why these and most subsequent domains are going to be mostly undesirable. The threat of litigation, combined with the fact that most 'good' domains (sans tld suffix) are gone, conspire to make protecting yourself from a cyber-squatter the only good reason to get a (.biz, .info, etc) domain.

  • With the general abuse of the top level domains they hardly mean anything anyway. I can see it reaching a point where they do away with .com .org etc and we just end up with www.slashdot instead. I remember a time you used to need company documents to register a .co.uk, now 15 quid and no questions asked.

    Anyhow, what with all the 'dot gone bankrupts' and 'dot can't be bothered to cough up $35 again this year for each of the 200 domains I thought would be popular' we're seeing a lot of domains becoming available again.
  • The fact is that most of these new domain names are too much money and don't have the recognition value of .com . When people think of the Internet and domain names in general, they think of .com. The only reason why anyone would want to buy any of the new TLD's is to protect against cyber squatters and only corporations or people with deep pockets will attempt that since there is a plethora of new TLD's. There are the other ICANN-unapproved new.net domain names that require a special plug-in to work. I doubt anyone is registering new.net domain names since your audience would be severely limited.

  • .biz (Score:1)

    by gozie ( 153475 )
    .biz just sounds un-professional. It's the suffix for an online lemonade stand at the online garage sale.
  • What are the country equivalent (2nd leel domains)?

    In Oz we have .com.au the UK and NZ are co.uk and co.nz respectively.

    Will this mean that we might have info.au and in.uk or inf.nv ?

    What about bi.uk or bi.nz what does that say?
  • There is nothing right about .biz either.

    In 2-3 years a whole lot of .com, .net and .org domains will become available.

    Some people will keep on cybersquatting, but any domain name worth cybersquatting that's not infringing on trademarks has already been sold.

    I'm halfway cybersquatting... I have a couple of domain names that I haven't done anything with other than point them to my servers. I do have plans for both of them though, just have other stuff that has higher priority.
    • Now that is a very good point. I also have a couple of very good domain names which I bought for A Great Idea(tm) during the Internet boom which I then never got around to doing. I would sell mine on for a very modest sum if anyone approached me. I bet there are thousands of us in the same boat. Those remaining cybersquatters must know that after the .com crash their dreams of making squillions from their domain names are long gone, and are probably prepared to be reasonable. I also think that in a year we will see a Renaissance of the .com, with an open market asking knock-down prices.

      I think it people really were desperate for new TLDs then services such as ALTERNIC would be more popular. If the Linux browsers Mozilla and Konqueror were configured by default to also check an alternate nameserver then the Linux community could have fun by inventing their own TLDs which could then be accessed by everyone else in the community (http://news.linux/ anyone?)

      Phillip.
      • You'd be surprised. I've tried to buy jscript.com a couple of times and the first time he wanted like $25,000 and I think he's down to $1000 now but geez... I'll give him $50 for it.
  • Okay, I'm stupid, but which .biz registrar is the least evil? I admit, I haven't been keeping up with the whole new TLD thing, but it would be nice to register my company's name .biz, and show it to management...makes it look like I'm on the ball.
  • It is a shame there was so much bureaucratic delay, along with "Internet bubble" arrogance. The result was that too few domains have been released, with a confused public. Even /.ers, most of whom are pretty Internet savvy, probably do not know the exact details of the TLD offerings.

    There should have been dozens of TLDs available last year. The old dot com, dot org, and dot net names simply do not sound "right" for many web sites. These measly new offerings are hardly useful.

  • Identity? (Score:2, Funny)

    by dav0 ( 245069 )
    The thing that I don't understand is how existing companies can be expected to migrate to the new TLD's. When you've spent thousands of $$'s on creating an identity using .com, who's going to want to change it? Not many...

    One of the bigger problems as I see it is companies being forced to buy their .biz equivalent, to stop others from having it. If I have a legitimate business at www.chair.com, but don;t want to shell out for chair.biz, what's stopping my competitor from buying it? All my brand name recognition is going to be helping the competition. Screw that! I hate being forced to do something I don't want. And don;t get me started on .museum...
  • If ICANN really wanted the new TLD's to mean something (other than a carbon-copy of the existing dot-com), their dispute resolution policy would contain language that the domain name would be awarded to the party whose purpose is most aligned with the intended use of the particular top level domain, perhaps in the absence of bad faith (swatting, intentionally misleading, etc).

    But they don't. Most of the language is oriented to give the name to the trademark holder, with some consideration of wether the respondant is using the domain name or registered it in bad faith. It doesn't matter if you register a .info, and put up a few simple pages with some information about a company... if they have a trademark on the name, the rules (and grim reality of the dispute process) is exactly the same as if it were a .com, .biz, or whatever. There's no consideration written into the dispute policy for wether the respondant chose the correct TLD for their content (assuming they're not just squatting).

    Likewise, there was all sorts of talk about registeration in various new TLDs requiring that you show that you really belong in that TLD. Well, it looks like it's all turned into a simple matter of paying money to the registars (the more you pay, the better the chance of being picked to receive the desired name, regardless of wether it may be appropriate for you to host a site within that TLD).

    • If you take a look at the rules for ".name", you will see that the dispute rules has been adapted to the intent of the TLD (it favors persons that actually have the name they register)

      There's even provisions for allowing your registration even when it specifically collides with a valid trademark claim, as long as you are registering your name, nickname or something close to it.

      (ObDisclaimer: I work for GNR, the company that operates .name)

    • I'm still upset that .org isn't reserved for oranisations and not-for-profit groups anymore, that .net is being used by non network providers [canoemuseum.net] and .com is one of the only available TLDs for people to get personally.

      What I believe we really need is to replace the domain name system with a keyword system; I know, I know, AOL comes to mind.

      However, wouldn't: "person Michael Babcock" be a nice way to find the list of people who registered that "keyword domain"? How about "company Redhat" or something like "company [linux]" to get all names containing "Linux"?

      DNS was designed, quite obviously, for a one-to-one relationship between companies/sites/individuals and names. This relationship can still be maintained using DNS, but superceded by maintained keyword indexes (as a dmoz [dmoz.com] extension?). There are many companies by certain names; apc.com wasn't held by American Power Conversion for a long time (who had to register apcc.com) because another company or group also has the initials APC. Name dispute resolution would still exist, but we wouldn't need to worry about telling someone they couldn't use a common word for their keyword name just because another company uses it as their trademark.

      Implementation is another discussion, but I use Alexa's keyword system and Yahoo's indexes [yahoo.com] a lot more often than I use domain names to find companies and individuals.

  • How about .cum?

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