I for one am hoping for .bighair

Does this really create stability issues on the internet? I can see where it will cause mass confusion because no one will remember anyones address that doesnt end with a standard TLD name.

Ray

Acidus wrote:
ICANN needs to be stopped. They proposing and prompting concepts that will irrevocably damage the Internet with essentially no one to keep them in check.

For the record, I couldn't disagree more. The original US centric TLD structure was kind of fucked up, given that the Internet is a global system, and I think its the scarcity of TLDs that makes names artificially valuable. If there were a thousand different TLDs that you could register your website in why would you pay some squatter $500 for .com?

I agree that the list of followon TLDs was hit or mis, but I use .info, and I don't think .asia or .travel are terrible. The problem is the fundamental idea that some committee should decide what names are and are not useful. If I want to create a TLD, and I can do it responsibly, why should I not be able to pick any name I desire?

Decius wrote:

Acidus wrote:
ICANN needs to be stopped. They proposing and prompting concepts that will irrevocably damage the Internet with essentially no one to keep them in check.

For the record, I couldn't disagree more. The original US centric TLD structure was kind of fucked up, given that the Internet is a global system, and I think its the scarcity of TLDs that makes names artificially valuable. If there were a thousand different TLDs that you could register your website in why would you pay some squatter $500 for .com?

I agree that the list of followon TLDs was hit or mis, but I use .info, and I don't think .asia or .travel are terrible. The problem is the fundamental idea that some committee should decide what names are and are not useful. If I want to create a TLD, and I can do it responsibly, why should I not be able to pick any name I desire?

Rightly or wrongly, the very scarcity of domain names also creates a reputation or trust in the domain names. Only one entity has shopping.com, and they probably had to pay a pretty penny for it. Odds that this is a dangerous site that will harm me, or steal my credit card, etc are very low. What about johnnysShop.widgetsForU?? No freaking idea. There is only one Wachovia.com and at most a dozen possible legitimate wachovia.[a-z]{3,}$. I see ".ru" or ".ua" and I don't visit. If something is .mil, I know what I'm dealing with. If something is .gov I know what level of truth I can expect (depending on whether I'm at *.senate.gov or not :-) )

If you flatten the space, you will lose this trait and you lose uniqueness. And I'm not saying these traits are so important that ICANN must always persist them. However I'm saying discarding a fundamental principle that was guided domain names for a decade+ should be made with thought and care and not to create a marketing opportunity.

What problem are you trying to solve Tom? That spammers have all the good names? Is the solution to that radically changing the way internet naming works? Or is it registrars charging a $5 tasting fee? Or that you need a more creative name?

Acidus wrote:
Rightly or wrongly, the very scarcity of domain names also creates a reputation or trust in the domain names.

That counter argument has some merit.

What problem are you trying to solve Tom? That spammers have all the good names?

Thats one problem - yes. If you aren't rich it is exceedingly difficult to get a usable domain name. Squatting is one of the downsides of the current system.

In addition, I think there are numerous good and useful TLD concepts that don't exist. The fact that ICANN did a bad job coming up with new ones is not proof that there aren't good ideas - its just proof that ICANN shouldn't be in control of that, and this proposal solves that problem.

Also, I previously stated, I think the fact that the US Government uses TLDs for its own purposes but other governments cannot do the same is a stupid idea that will continue to have negative consequences for generations.

I'm saying discarding a fundamental principle that was guided domain names for a decade+ should be made with thought and care and not to create a marketing opportunity.

I think they are being careful. Have you filed a comment?

Acidus wrote:
Only one entity has shopping.com, and they probably had to pay a pretty penny for it. Odds that this is a dangerous site that will harm me, or steal my credit card, etc are very low.

What I've read leads me to believe that the Internet is a "dangerous" place. Nothing served over an unencrypted connection can be trusted. Even trusted sites like cnn.com can serve advertisements that deliver the malware of the week.
Moreover, I don't see how allowing a (spammer/domain parker) to register google.search is any worse than allowing them to register any one of the common misspellings.

Acidus wrote:
What problem are you trying to solve Tom? That spammers have all the good names? Is the solution to that radically changing the way internet naming works?

How is adding a skrillion new TLDs radically changing the way that internet naming works?

Acidus wrote:

The familiar .com, .net, .org and 18 other suffixes — officially "generic top-level domains" — could be joined by a seemingly endless stream of new ones next year under a landmark change approved last summer by the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers, the entity that oversees the Web's address system.

Tourists might find information about the Liberty Bell, for example, at a site ending in .philly. A rapper might apply for a Web address ending in .hiphop.

"Whatever is open to the imagination can be applied for," says Paul Levins, ICANN's vice president of corporate affairs. "It could translate into one of the largest marketing and branding opportunities in history."

ICANN needs to be stopped. They proposing and prompting concepts that will irrevocably damage the Internet with essentially no one to keep them in check.

Something seriously must be done about the pollution of the TLDs.

From RFC 1591 in 1994:

2. The Top Level Structure of the Domain Names

In the Domain Name System (DNS) naming of computers there is a
hierarchy of names. The root of system is unnamed. There are a set
of what are called "top-level domain names" (TLDs). These are the
generic TLDs (EDU, COM, NET, ORG, GOV, MIL, and INT), and the two
letter country codes from ISO-3166. It is extremely unlikely that
any other TLDs will be created.

Postel must be screaming in his grave to know ICANN rolled like a dog in heat to special interests and already created bullshit TLDs like:

*.aero
*.asia
*.biz
*.cat
*.coop
*.info
*.jobs
*.mil
*.mobi
*.museum
*.name
*.pro
*.tel
*.travel

This is insanity. ICANN's mission statement is not to facilitate "the largest marketing and branding opportunities in history." Its to manage and preserve the operational stability of the Internet's addressing systems! When the hell did it become being a stooge for the world's ISPs?

Fuck. This. Shit.

What's a domain name? What is a TLD? I just use the internet, I don't know what you guys are talking about.

Well, of course they're going to be whores the moment someone starts talking about profitability of what should be a utility.

After all, there'll be even more profit in selling everyone more computing power for their nameservers when the root zone files balloon up to 16^26*whatever in size. Oh, and MOAR NAMESERVERS because we want to make sure that the internet is at least one-third nameservers before anyone actually tries to get everyone using secure DNS.

This is such a fuck-up waiting to happen.

Dagmar wrote:
Well, of course they're going to be whores the moment someone starts talking about profitability of what should be a utility.

I daresay that many of the various telcos and Internet support organizations have been screwing us in the name of increased profits for a very long time. TWC's ~$100/mo unlimited (Really, we mean it this time!) cable data plan comes to mind.

Dagmar continued:
... we want to make sure that the internet is at least one-third nameservers before anyone actually tries to get everyone using secure DNS.

Cite?

Best subject line, ever.