
.confusion: ICANN opens up Pandora's Box of new TLDs - nickb
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080626-confusion-icann-opens-up-pandoras-box-of-new-tlds.html
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mojuba
Even though this decision is way too controversial, I welcome it because (1)
it's more democratic and (2) the old situation with limited TLDs can't be
justified.

One problem with the existing domain name system is that it failed to provide
strict delegation of names the way digital certification does, for example, or
the way the IP address delegation works. So why bother having a limited set of
TLD's at all?

In fact, USENET's hierarchy has always been more open in this regard and
needless to say, it worked.

I just hope they'll preserve .local and I don't care about the rest. We'll
surely remember the good names (reddit.com, slashdot.org, etc) the way we
remember good USENET groups, and will leave the rest to the search engines.

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makecheck
Search engines are very good at finding things, it seems less important than
ever what your site's name actually is.

The proliferation of extensions is also annoying: I don't like remembering
that "abc.net" is completely different than "abc.com". I think it would make
(slightly) more sense if acquiring "abc.<anything>" at least meant you
couldn't ever register "abc.<anything-else>", as then the only purpose of the
extension is to identify who manages your domain.

Personally, if I see an organization with a "special" new TLD, I won't be
impressed. I'll only consider them foolish for dropping half a million bucks,
and assume that they mismanage their money in other ways (i.e. bad investment,
steer clear).

~~~
petervidani
Who's to say that your personal criticism couldn't be compared to the same
criticism many companies began receiving in the 90's when they moved the sale
of their products to the internet? Remember that the internet is still so
young, and it's important to keep an open mind to each step of change.

~~~
LogicHoleFlaw
Indeed, the last thing freed from Pandora's box was Hope.

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ardit33
I actually like this, as the .com has been running out of any good names in a
long time. And getting any decent name, requires paying lots of money, to the
domain squatters. Even 2-5k is too much for a small startup, or for a small
personal project.

Also, they seem that they are closing the "domain tasting" party. Basically
you can only return back for a full refund few domains, then you can't get a
refund back.

So, those "domain tasters" that horde thousands of domains a day, and keep the
legitimate users to find a good one, will have to find a new job.

~~~
jcl
So... How much happier were you when .info, .biz, or .name opened up? Why
would the new TLDs be any more desirable? And, if they are, what stops
squatters from snatching them up as they have done with the current set of
domains?

As far as I can see, any change in the availability of "good names" is
temporary. The long-term effects of new TLDs are (1) more money for ICANN, (2)
more confusion on the part of the users as to whether a given piece of text is
a domain name, and (3) more phishing sites.

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gruseom
I find the controversy around this a little odd. URLs are practically
arbitrary strings. All they're doing is generalizing the last bit.

~~~
jcl
There is some benefit to having non-arbitrary strings for URLs.

For one thing, if you see the text "interslice.com" on a business card or in
an advertisement, you have some reassurance that it is a website. If you just
have the text "interslice", the reader needs additional prompting to know it
is a website.

Likewise, if you see someone's e-mail address listed as "bob@us.interslice.c",
you can tell just by looking at it that there's probably something wrong with
it -- maybe you can even diagnose and fix the problem yourself. But you can't
do this for arbitrary strings, which carry no such redundancy.

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stillmotion
So I could buy www.paypal and set up www.paypal/com? Nice. This is a great
idea, ICANN.

~~~
ardit33
no you can't. Paypal is trademarked, and belong to a company, so you will
never be able to buy it. If you do, you will probably going to get sued, if
the name is such that users can confuse it with the current company. Unless it
is something like paypalsucks, which is totally legal.

~~~
LogicHoleFlaw
Trademarks are _not_ unique. They are unique within a _given industry_. And
they may not be owned by the same party across different nations. This is
already a problem with companies with the same name in different industries
vying for the same URL.

~~~
mojuba
So we'll finally see apple.com vs. apple.recording-industry-sharks and both
will be happy.

