

Do we need more top level domains? - bmunro
http://www.baekdal.com/opinion/icann-now-domains-no-needed

======
Sidnicious
This article makes a few good (but separate) points.

1\. Hostnames are backwards. com.ycombinator.news makes much more sense than
news.ycombinator.com, because the rest of a URL goes from least specific
(protocol) to most specific (path components, query, fragment). The only case
where the current form of hostname works is email addresses (user at sub dot
domain dot tld). IIRC, one of the founders of the WWW (Tim Berners-Lee,
perhaps?) already admitted that they got this wrong. I'm all for fixing it,
but how? There would need to be easily machine- and human-identifiable
differences between old- and new-style hostnames, or there's massive potential
for confusion and collisions. There's also an unthinkable amount of software
out there that understands hostnames in their current form.

2\. The TLD system is broken. Hierarchical hostnames make great sense when you
want to refer to the host foo, owned by building four of the computer science
department of Caltech. The TLDs we're using today are hacks, a valiant attempt
by ICANN to conserve the domain namespace. I hate to admit it, but I think
that registering TLDs based on trademark really could work. It'd mean the end
of fun websites like <http://unicodesnowmanforyou.com/>, but would bring a
huge amount of sanity to the top-level namespace. It would create to a huge
new market for private subdomain reselling (whoever gets .www is going to make
a killing) where resellers would have the power to be selective about
registrations, and to pull domains out from under squatters. Spam-heavy TLDs
would lose credibility.

It makes today's internet feel like the Wild West.

~~~
makecheck
_"whoever gets .www is going to make a killing"_

I think that they'd have to make an exception for historical reasons, and
simply pre-register "www.". (This kind of reservation is not unprecedented;
"example.com" and similar names are off-limits, according to the original RFC
2606.) So "www." could be introduced as a giant no-op in the modified domain
name system, and browsers would simply learn to ignore it.

~~~
Sidnicious
I kid. It's not going to be www, but whichever domain or set of domains is
easy to type, sells subdomains for cheaps, and is aggressive about spam
control will win.

It might be worthwhile for ICANN to make three-and-fewer character names off-
limits to private registration.

------
jarek
As just one example, who gets "era", and why?

<http://www.era.com/> ?

<http://www.era.mk/> ?

<http://www.era.hk/> ?

<http://www.era.pl/> ?

<http://www.era.ru/> ?

------
ck2
I am starting to believe most new TLDs are simply a scam by registries to
force trademark holders to re-buy their trademarks every time. They serve
little other purpose.

~~~
hristov
Wow, that's a late start.

------
woodrow
The author is reiterating the complaints that major trademark holders raised
over a decade ago during the initial generic TLD (gTLD) expansion process in
the mid-1990s (see Milton Mueller's book "Ruling The Root" for details). More
gTLDs meant the need to purchase one's trademark in each new gTLD in order to
protect that trademark. The power that trademark holders/WIPO had in this
process lead to "sunrise" periods where established trademarks were allowed to
be registered before the registry opened generally, and I've heard claims that
the dispute resolution process can tend to favor trademark holders too, though
I can't vouch for that.

The problem with the claim that trademark interests trump all others in domain
name disputes is that non-domain-name trademarks must be distinctive and are
typically for a specific market. To use the example already given in the
comments, Apple Inc. the computer manufacturer and Apple Records the music
label can coexist because they aren't really in the same market and won't
confuse consumers as such. However, domain names don't allow for this level of
subtlety, and so whoever registers apple.com first with good-faith intent
"wins", despite justified interest from computer, music, and fruit companies.

While this attitude towards new gTLDs makes sense from the perspective of
existing second-level domain/trademark holders, what about those who aren't
established yet. Is the person searching for a short or meaningful domain name
out of luck because trademark holders are sick of new TLDs? There appears to
be demand for new TLDs, and it's been shown that the root zone will scale, so
it would seem to make sense to allow new TLDs for those whose needs aren't met
by .com et al.

The deeper problem in all of this is that we interpret meaning in these unique
identifiers, and use that meaning as part of branding and to judge
authenticity of a site. If (for example) websites were identified by the
public key of the certificate that signed its contents, and if we navigated
the web using a directory system instead of typing domain names into browser
URL bars, we wouldn't have this problem.

------
jarin
I've been saying we need a .app TLD for years!

~~~
zefhous
Yeah, I've looked into this a couple times. I would really love to see this
happen. In my (biased) opinion this would be much more meaningful/useful than
some of the others that exist.

I don't know that anyone is actually _trying_ to make this happen, but I've
come across a lot of people who think it's a great idea.

For anyone who's interested, here is some info from ICANN describing the
application process and status of recent TLD applications:

<http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/> <http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtld-
program.htm>

It would be sweet if Google or someone big tried to get this done...

------
benologist
If they fucked the squatters and parked domains off then we'd probably _never_
need another top or other domain again.

It's just stupid trying to find an unregistered domain now.

~~~
patio11
Be careful what you wish for. While that would kill off third-tier domaining,
most domains worth owning are worth pulling a Demand Media type strategy on if
you have no other option. If I had a hundred thousand domains like, I don't
know, clevelandcars.com, I'd get myself something conceptually similar to
Wordpress MultiUser (WPMU) installed so that they could all be administered
centrally, hire swarms of low-wage freelancers to thicken them with less-than-
awe-inspiring content, and slap adsense ads on all of them.

This would quickly be turned into a turnkey solution for parking -- it would
cost $50 a domain a year, sure, but that is mouse droppings next to what a
decent domain earns in a commercial niche.

~~~
benologist
That's true. Maybe policing domains would be a better strategy - use it and
use it within specific guidelines or lose it.

~~~
patio11
I would be very, very pissed off if Scholastic Publishing convinced the Proper
Domain Use Authority to bump the squatter off of bingocardcreator.com and let
them put their shiny new multi-million dollar product launch there.

Again, be careful what you wish for. Any sort of recurring regulatory process
puts hoops in front of us little guys more than it does for anybody else.
We're the ones who don't have squads of lawyers sitting on standby with
nothing better to do than push paperwork through the process.

------
makecheck
You could argue that the main problem with domains is their exposure to end
users; they are essentially an implementation detail of a protocol. Since they
are relatively simple to type on desktop computers, they've worked well for a
long time. Now, finally, with touch displays, they may be called out for being
too cumbersome.

The problem to solve is not the look of domain names, but authentication. How
do you know that you've reached the "real" web site for a product or service
or group? If you could know that in some other way, you wouldn't necessarily
need to see an ugly domain name.

I could imagine something much more interactive. For instance, an app that
lets you first specify your favorite products and services, that can then pop
up a grid of touchable corporate logos to bring you directly to the correct
web sites (no URLs needed). The existing DNS registry could be used to either
figure out what you need, or give you a short list of choices. In time, apps
like these would become so standard that you wouldn't "need" to register all
permutations of a trademark, because they would already be choosing the
correct one.

~~~
mattmiller
Bring back AOL keywords!

Seriously though, the DNS system needs to be exact, not a heuristic guess of
what the user wants. A guess would make winners and losers out of equal
competing sites; kinda like search engines do, but worse since there would be
no second slot.

------
ygd
I like the idea, I hate how he uses 'ridicules' instead of 'ridiculous'.

------
cjy
Why don't we just raise the price of domain names? If you doubled the price
you'd make a lot of domain squatting unprofitable.

How is it that you need baekdal.dk but not baekdal.cn? Don't they pose the
same security threat when it comes to phishing? It's really not necessary to
own 20 different tlds to protect your brand. How many people mistakenly go to
baekdal.biz?

~~~
zefhous
The fact that it's so cheap to get a site up online is one of the best things
about the internet. I would hate to see the price of domain names go up in an
attempt to fix this type of problem. I think it would do much more harm than
good.

------
ericz
Definitely agree. Java's packaging does it right. Unfortunately large changes
like this are just not going to happen without some drastic event. Changing
around the order of TLDs would be no easier than switching the US to metric
system.

------
rlpb
We already have a system where anyone can buy any name they want. It's called
.com. If we open up the root space as a free-for-all, then we will never be
able to extend the system in the future. We can only do it once.

------
chaosmachine
This is interesting, because it seems to solve the problem of having to buy
dozens of .tlds to secure your brand name.

