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Plans For New TLDs
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slashdot.dot (Score:5, Funny)
Re:slashdot.dot (Score:5, Funny)
Really easy to tell people over the telephone
.porn (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:.porn (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:.porn (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:.porn (Score:4, Interesting)
"Cool"? Pornography on the internet isn't a high-school popularity contest-- it's about making money. Making
Re:.porn (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:.porn (Score:5, Informative)
Re:.porn (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:.porn (Score:2)
It's exactly the same issue as with the
Re:.porn (Score:3, Interesting)
With .porn, you define a domain positively based on its content. It's easy to imagine a whole list of such domains dealing with different types of 'controversial' material, say, domians which dealt with comparitive religion, explicit but non-porn sexual matters, and so on. These domains would be blockable by arbitrarily liberal or prudish parents
.kids is different, in that it's a catch-all containing everything left over when you remove the unsuitable material. Further, it has to be suitable for children in the most repressive households, or else word gets out among some religious community that .kids allows unfettered access to material dealing with sexual health, evolution, atheism, blood transfusions, or other such horrors.
Re:.porn (Score:3, Funny)
Excellent! This will make it much easier for me to find pictures of hot German chicks at *.PORN.DE, withouth having to look through ugly Russian girls (now at *.PORN.RU).
Re:WHAT YOU SAY GOES AGAINST THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY (Score:2)
How about a .rz domain for Religious Zealots only? Someone could con the $cientologists in there, too.
Or does $cientology only live in .ca?
Re:.porn (Score:2)
Also, why wouldn't the x-rated want to be under a
Plus of course, economically speaking, clustering of similar services has allways been a good thing.
As for enforcement...if there's enough to go into a discussion if something is porn or not, the site in question should probably be under
And I should think it's just as easy to shoot off an email over whether that site under
Re:.porn (Score:2, Informative)
.ws is the country specific extension to Western Samoa. It does NOT (despite what many people may think) stand for 'WebSite'.
Otherwise, a very valid point :) My personal site is currently hosted under the .co.uk extension - whereas it "should" be under .me.uk .
Re:.porn (Score:5, Informative)
A
blocking via domainnames? I think you'd better block via IP, most of those kids are smart enough to figure this out...
Anyway the most illegal porn won't be located under http//www.lolita.porn. but under http://fctnts14d017.nbnet.nb.ca/~xydds/ this is why filtering wont work...
Re:.porn (Score:4, Funny)
Re:NB (Score:2)
Re:.porn (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, who is going to enforce such a separation? it may not even be constitutional here in the US, and there will always be a country with less-stringent rules that sites can take refuge in.
In short, such a proposal will not work. Get over it. Sex is a fact of life. If you find porn distasteful (I do, personally) DON'T LOOK.
Tar-Palantir
Re:.porn (Score:2, Funny)
Re:.porn (Score:5, Funny)
The courts. Law is full of 'man on the Clapham omnibus'-style subjective definitions. Why should porn be different?
Legislators would devise some 'reasonable wankability' test, which the courts would interpret and apply.
Re:.porn (Score:2)
In which case you don't want a
Legislators would devise some 'reasonable wankability' test, which the courts would interpret and apply.
You'd need to get 200 odd legislatures to agree, being as they can't even manage this on the simpler problem of prosecuting war criminals it's a bit of a waste of time trying.
Re:.porn (Score:2)
dot come (Score:3, Funny)
How about
Re:.porn (Score:2, Funny)
A
In turn the
Re:.porn (Score:5, Funny)
Re:.porn (Score:2)
you could regsiter with the providor and www.hotel could have a search by location, bringing up all the
This would be a great system for a many domains...
Now we just need to get people to think it's a good idea.
Re:.porn (Score:2)
We could abolish all TLDs! That way we wouldn't have to remember if it was w3.org or w3.com; we could just go to "w3"
But lets go a step further. Domains are just a way to concentrate power in the hands of a few people (corporate boards get many of them - a person here or there can buy a domain for $35 and sell it for $100,000) so we should get rid of them.
Of course, then it becomes hard to go anywhere, if you keep the same browsing methods. Many places might still be vying for the same name.
So how about a system where everyone who wants can sign up for a "site" under a particular name. So when you type the name in, it brings up a list of results that match the search you entered, with the most popular results being first.
Or...
How about to don't complain about TLDs being worthless and instead come up with a plan to replace ICANN?
Dot US (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dot US (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, if we get
Re:Dot US (Score:5, Insightful)
We set the idea of postage stamps up, so we ended up being the default, just like the US did for domains.
Re:Dot US (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dot US (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dot US (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Dot US (Score:5, Informative)
It's not mandatory to use the two-letter country suffixes for non-US sites. For example, jungle.co.uk (an online retailer of computer goods and so on) is just a re-direct to jungle.com, even though they do business exclusively in the UK.
Also, the .US domain has recently been opened up to general use. It's available from a number of different registrars, for example here [alldomains.com] and here [registersite.com] and here [register.com], to name a few.
Regarding auto-completing parts of URLs, note that the "http" protocol is universal to web sites. (Well, if you count https, but anybody using that for an entire site will have an unencrypted redirect page if they have the first clue what they're doing.) It is interesting, though, to try different browsers with just random words typed into the location bar. Internet Explorer, for example, will interpret "foobar" as a search term and direct you to a MicroSoft owned search engine where it will search for foobar. Phoenix (and most likely NS7, Beonex, and their common progenitor Mozilla) will assume that you meant http://www.foobar.com/ and send you there.
Re:Dot US (Score:2, Informative)
Very nice but... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Very nice but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Thing is that if
The interesting thing is that many real transnational businesses want to chop their market up into regions (even single countries) anyway.
Monopoly! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Monopoly! (Score:2, Insightful)
They have failed miserably to promote the names introduced in 2000. How many web addresses have you seen with
I've seen a few small companies here in Scotland with the newest suffixes and I get angry at the marketing company who set them up, before the names have "bedded in".
As a result, these
I've actually missed a few firms because I was looking for a
Re:Monopoly! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Monopoly! (Score:2)
I've had my computer pointing to them for a while now, and everything works swimmingly. They support most of the TLDs that ICANN uses, and define a few of their own. Encourage people to use it. If enough do, then eventually we can switch over to a democratic system.
We do actually need a universal registrar, much as we need universal telephone numbers. However, opennic is democratic while ICANN is an isolated monolith. We need to switch.
Please can we keep the monopoly? (Score:2)
I can't help thinking that the domain name system worked a lot better when it was all run by one company. I register domains with OpenSRS, and trying to take over domains administered by Network Solutions, for example, is a nightmare, because half the time they just ignore the requests to hand over the domain. The last thing we want is to introduce that kind of behaviour at the next level up.
Current timetable... (Score:5, Funny)
Who needs domain names when you've got Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nowadays, I google for websites much more often than using their domain name anyway, and I hope people will rather spend the $50k mentioned in the BBC article on a good website that will be first hit on Google than on a domain name.
Re:Who needs domain names when you've got Google? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who needs domain names when you've got Google? (Score:2, Interesting)
Recently, I started using Phoenix's address bar as a "phrase bar," where I enter what I want to see.. like "apache python module," and usually (about 90% of the time), since it automatically grabs the first google search result of "apache python module," I get exactly what I want.
TLDs considered useless (Score:2, Insightful)
As my friend Billy S. said: "What's in a TLD name? That which we call a foo by any other name would be as easy to google."
The concept of searching for content by trying out an 'address' is SO 1990ies... Of course, if I want the site of the Austrian postal service, I can be pretty sure that it will be at post.at and try that first. Other names might not be that straight-forward, but still easier to remember, like bmf.gv.at for the BundesMinisterium für Finanzen, which is part of the GoVernment of AusTria. But you only remember that address if you already found out (with Google etc.) that it's basicly saying 'Bundesministerium für Finanzen', and not the more commonly used shorter term 'Finanzministerium'.
Everything less official doesn't have intuitive domain names any longer because there have been way too much name clashes already. If a new movie about foo is released, the site isn't foo.com, it's foo-the-movie-com, foomovie.com, $$$productions.com/foo or something like that. No one tries any of these, as a search engine query will lead to the target much faster. People who want free pr0n aren't trying freepr0n.com any longer.
By the time anything like
So, what's in a name? Nothing at all, it doesn't matter to people anyway. It's just nicer to have something 'human-readable' for writing it down instead of an IP number, but once everyone carries around their bookmarks on PDAs (or wristwatches or smartcards) and does the drag-and-drop instead of the scribble-on-paper thing, even those would be okay as addresses, even if they were in decimal format.
Re:Who needs domain names when you've got Google? (Score:4, Interesting)
In a free world, 'where do you want to google today' might work.
I was wondering... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then I spotted this part of the BBC story:
Under the new plans, any organisation can propose a name. But it must prove that the new domain will represent a well-defined community closely associated with the domain name, and supply a $50,000 application fee. Final approval rests with Icann
Might I suggest that anyone stupid enough to give Icann $50,000 with the nothing in return but a 'we'll think about it' from a notoriously unaccountable organisation that is responsible for the lack of decent TLDs in the first place should be awarded a new
voluntary censorship by TLD (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:voluntary censorship by TLD (Score:2)
Re:voluntary censorship by TLD (Score:4, Informative)
This is sort of the opposite of
.com worth more (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:.com worth more (Score:2)
How are you determining a
Sure, hbo.com is valuable. So is hbo.tv.
The other TLD's are expensive because its still possible to get short domain names in their namespace.
Which is more valuable:
mynameisjonathanfrakes.com
or
number2.cc
Bad choice of TLDS. (Score:5, Interesting)
IMO most of those are pretty useless. ICANN should be working on revoking the country TLDS's that are being abused (.tk,
Also, Has anyone here actually been glad that
Re:Bad choice of TLDS. (Score:2, Funny)
Ironic you left .cx out of your list, given your nick ;-)
Re:Bad choice of TLDS. (Score:2)
Why not ".iata.int"?
the World Health Organization (WHO) lobbied for ".health,"
Why not ".who.un" or "who.int"
Nokia Corp. for ".mobile"
Don't they already have ".nokia.com"?
and a group of Internet companies said it wants ".III" for individuals".
This is actually the daftest, since how do you sensibly organise 6 billion domains?
IMO most of those are pretty useless. ICANN should be working on revoking the country TLDS's that are being abused (.tk,
That list also includes
Re:Bad choice of TLDS. (Score:2)
Re:Bad choice of TLDS. (Score:2)
You can no longer be sure that something under
Re:Bad choice of TLDS. (Score:4, Informative)
Read CIRA's Canadian Presence Requirements [www.cira.ca].
Re:Bad choice of TLDS. (Score:2)
I think it goes to show that in creating these new TLD's, ICANN has zero clue about what they should be aiming for.
Well... (Score:4, Funny)
What about Domain Squatting, etc? (Score:2, Interesting)
Do the majority of people think it is wrong?
Maybe some of the problem is giving up some of the current domains. Sure, if you've registered the name, you own it, and should be able to sell it. But, I can't go to the copyright office and register every word in the dictionary, can I?
Re:What about Domain Squatting, etc? (Score:2)
TLDs vs Country IDs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:TLDs vs Country IDs (Score:2)
Enquiring minds want to know
Re:TLDs vs Country IDs (Score:3, Insightful)
That's how
Re:TLDs vs Country IDs (Score:2)
That's how
Actually it's how the DNS should be used. Nothing to do with webservers, since the DNS has been around long before the invention of the HTTP protocol.
Probably around 1990, if not a few years before.
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, if all the domain squatters/speculators were cleared up .org/.com/.net would become far less crowded. The last set of new domain names failed spectacularly - the only one i've ever seen used is .info: .aero anybody? WTF? An entire TLD for a very specific industry?
Which solution would better? (Score:5, Insightful)
As it stands, most of the existing TLDs are not very regulated, thereby defeating the orginal point of having different TLDs. The other big problem is that existing
Re:Which solution would better? (Score:4, Interesting)
Or even you don't get a
As it stands, most of the existing TLDs are not very regulated,
Indeed some of then have become less well regulated as time has gone on.
thereby defeating the orginal point of having different TLDs.
If domain names were used properly there wouldn't be an issue. The problem is treating a hierarchical system as though it is a flat namespace. No one is demmanding that there be more coutry names for postal mail or more country codes for telephones.
The other big problem is that existing
Implying that the real idea is to make money out of the registrations. Anyway trademarks are ment to be specific to a specific place and type of business, though this appears to be increasingly ignored.
Kiwi style (Score:4, Funny)
Or how about
Of course, that could also be ipv6.geek and hackme.geek (or crackme.geek for Eric Raymond et. al.)
Re:Kiwi style (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Kiwi style (Score:2)
Mess, mess mess.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we should just allow any 3 letter top domain (aaa-zzz) and be done with it. 4 letters could be used for special purposes (.kids?) and 2 letters for countries. I can't see any technical problems with this, except that IBM would claim control over the
PS. (Score:4, Interesting)
J.
Wrong Way! (Score:5, Interesting)
Stpuid (Score:4, Insightful)
DNS...why do we use it? (Score:5, Interesting)
The better solution would be to replace DNS with a better naming system.
Search engines are a good start but they are too hit or miss on many topics. Those with IE/Windows, try using the Google toolbar as your address bar for a week. It makes a decent DNS replacement system (Okay, it hides DNS, it still uses it, but it wouldn't be a big jump to switch Google to an all IP address solution)
Leaving DNS will be a huge task, bigger than changing to IP v6. There needs to be some way to get everyone to install the replacement, or convince Mozilla/Netscape, AOL and Microsoft to include it.
On a side note, at this time, there is only one plugin that has made it this far, and that's Flash. So, it can be done, there just has to be a compelling reason to get people to do it.
Re:DNS...why do we use it? (Score:2, Insightful)
DNS it needs to be opened up completely. have
anything else is just raping and pillaging from the people on this planet... (ICANN- stealing money from people daily!)
Decause it is a _naming_ system (Score:2)
Or do you also agree that the phone book should indicate what sort of information you'll get from me when you call my phone number, and be surprised if I start reading bad science fiction to you instead of telling you to place me on your Do Not Call list?
Names are identifiers, not semantic indicators. Otherwise I'd be named Software Hack #22948236, White Male #039784982367, or perhaps Annoying Sarcastic Jerk #9865666652, depending on one's priorities.
If Google resolved all links to IPs, that would make Google far more brittle, because content moves and IP addresses change.
And I'm ignoring the larger issues of decentralized name delegation and the fact that you seem to be conflating the web with the net.
I believe if you look at the wider URI specification, there is some what what you're looking for. URLs were considered Good Enough(TM) by most people, which is a little unfortunate, but if development houses can't even support that, how are you going to get them to toss DNS? (If you're really interested, DNS SERV records get closer to what I think you mean, too.)
-j
Why do we need TLDs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why do we need TLDs? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, in the ancient days, there was this bizarre idea that the name of something should in some way represent what it actually was.
That's before idiots decided that
The solution is a free-for-all: you get whatever domains are being hosted on whatever root servers you want to use, no central authority. There's no need for one, there never really was.
.gnu (Score:3, Funny)
after .biz and .name... (Score:4, Funny)
and most importantly,
I hereby nominate .noads (Score:3, Interesting)
Once established I would surf almost exclusively in this domain.
Now can anybody lend me USD 50,000?
I want to register... (Score:3, Funny)
DNS is broken, let's just kill it (Score:3, Interesting)
A number based system is the only practical alternative: people and companies would publicise their "web number" just as they do their phone and/or fax today. So the first root domain would be "http://1/" and the owner of that could sell http://1.1 or 1.2 or 1.3 etc to whoever s/he likes. Meanwhile http://2 is sold off, then //3, //4 etc with no effective limit.
This is NOT the same as using IP numbers - the "web number" is still translated into an IP number and the IP number can be changed without changing the web number.
This kills almost all the problems with the current crap system of trademarked names and squatting while, thanks to search engines and bookmark files, not actually making the system much harder to use. A few numbers might still go for higher prices, like some phone numbers do, but this would be a far smaller issue than it is now. Meanwhile, by effectivly increasing the number of TLD's to infinity the power of ICANN is completly undermined and reigned in.
I personally would not stop old style names being used but I would like to see and end to new ones being registered. But even if the current name system just became totally commercial and everyone else went to numbers, free from the threat of legal action because their name is "too like" someone elses, it would be an improvement.
The ultimate improvement is to eliminate the control of registration of new names/numbers from a single person/group. In my alternative there is a lot less power invested anywhere since the owner of //1 can sell sub-domains forever without having to go back to the root registrar and since the numbers don't mean anything there is not such a big reason to keep wanting a TLD, but the root registrar still has too much power. I just can't think of a working system to eliminate that person and their DNS server(s) competely.
TWW
Re:DNS is broken, let's just kill it (Score:2)
No, but it has the exact same problem - impossible to remember. I'd rather not have to remember http://2093.927348/ - gimme http://slashdot.org/ anytime.
Re:DNS is broken, let's just kill it (Score:2)
The biggest prblem with IP numbers is that they change, memory is secondary.
I'd rather not have to remember http://2093.927348/ - gimme http://slashdot.org/ anytime.
Just stick in your bookmarks. I admit that it's easier to remember slashdot.org but how did you first find slashdot? Did you just guess the url? Of course not, you clicked on a link somewhere or read it or saw it on Google or something. After you found it and liked it what would be the big deal if it was a number?
TWW
DNS broken?? (Score:2)
Re:DNS broken?? (Score:2)
The inability of people to get domains which are safe from either squatters or big business. The idea behind the TLD's was to allow separation, for example, of two companies that do things in different spheres or places. This has failed. For example, try going to Tuvalu and setting up a database of vulpine observations. I think you'll find that your "fox.tv" will get a very sharp letter and your ISP will drop you like a stone about 4 days later! The number of cases like this has got out of hand and can only get worse over time. In addition the limited number of TLDs and the way they are doled out gives ICANN far too much power.
Are you proposing that people type in "66.35.250.150"
Possibly, if 66 TLDs were sold and then the owner of #65 sold 35 subdomains and the owner of #35 sold 250 sub-subdomains and the owner of the 250th of those sold 150 sub-sub-subdomains and you wanted the site on the that sub-sub-sub domain, then yes. In reality I doubt that the sub divisions would ever get that deep since there would be no 255 limit; http://86625000/ would be totally legal and would allow as many individual sites as you would need in the example you gave. Would you care if the URLs in your bookmarks or on Google looked like this? How many sites do you regularly type the URL for? How many phone numbers have you memorised that are even longer than 86625000?
What happens when IP addresses change?
I specifically said that this is an abstraction on top of IP's and that there would be no change. If you like, I'm sort of suggesting that DNS servers accept numbers as legal name characters. There is absolutely no connection between web numbers and IP numbers.
TWW
Re:DNS is broken, let's just kill it (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think moving towards the "phone # model" is all that great an idea. It may be familiar, but it only exists because phones are a legacy system that, as originally designed, could only handle addressing serially and very low speed (pulse dialing). Phones themselves have been moving away from the "phone # model" lately. Between on-board phone # directories and voice recognition dialing, how many people still dial the actual number on the keypad anymore? I know I only enter numbers directly to dial if I'm calling a person/business I've never called before.
This kills almost all the problems with the current crap system of trademarked names and squatting...
Yeah, but it's really a strategy of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. People are fiercly competetive over recognizable domain names, so the solution is to make all domain addresses equally grim and abstract? That's a soviet communism solution.
<hyperbole>
While we're at it, lets apply this theory to art. Masterpieces of fine art are in finite supply, with not enough for everyone. The price of fine art is so high that many can't afford it. I propose we destroy all art and replace it with sequentially serial numbered sheets of framed (but blank) newsprint paper. That way, everyone will have their own distinct piece of art and no one will have the advantage of better art just because they have more money.
</hyperbole>
Count me out of this movement.
Re:Nice troll... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, it was so the people WOULDN'T HAVE TO TRACK CHANGING IP ADDRESSES. Duh!
It was thought that the ability to have memorable names was a nice side-effect and that it would be managed by keeping different intellectual property claims in separate domains. That worked for a while but once companies started to leak out of .com and into .net and .org the system rapidly fell apart and it now SUCKS. Go on, set up cocacola.info for all your cola-wars stories and see how long you'll last with the "but it's clearly not THE cocacola because it's .info, not .com" argument. How about something more generic like "apple.co.uk" for your orchard business? Or perhaps the world's Mr McDonalds would like a site devoted to their families? Good luck to them!
Recognisable names seemed like a good idea but are not viable in the long run; abstracting IP's is vital.
TWW
Re:DNS is broken, let's just kill it (Score:2)
Well, I imagine that the root registrar would be #1 or that an ISP looking for a nice number to sub-domain would buy it, but even if you're right the marketing value would be pretty small, much the same as having a simple phone number.
TWW
Why do we need tlds? (Score:3, Interesting)
I would like to see... (Score:4, Interesting)
etc..I think a limited or incorperated company would be happy to have its own Businessname.inc
Plus its short!
(unlike SOME i could mention-- nokia.takesmeafuckinghourtotypethisonamobilephone
MLM for registrars and icann (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree with many of the other posters here - dns is outdated and it doesn't fit how the Internet is used any more, particularly with respect to businesses online with trademarks, etc. The downside is that replacing it will happen just shortly after we all convert to IPv6 which should be about 3523 A.D.
Re:Previous plans for more TLD's failed (Score:5, Informative)