
ICANN Approves generic top-level domains - gert
http://www.icann.org/
======
tristanperry
Meh, I doubt it'll have any major effect.

The vast majority of TLDs that are introduced fail very quickly (.name, .biz,
.pro, a range of ccTLDs whose country's citizens opt for the 'big 3' - .com,
.net and .org - regardless, etc)

All that'll happen here - IMO - is that a few of the bigger names will waste
$185k on their unique TLDs, realise that their users get confused by them
(never underestimate the ability of big companies to misunderstand it's
users..) and either switch back or stick ridgidly to using them with no
positive effect.

So yep, I'm not too concerned about this. ICANN aren't a great organisation,
and they seem to mainly bring out new TLDs to get more money.

</Rant>

~~~
noibl
I think you're missing the significance of this change. It's not clearly
stated in the announcement (in fact, nothing is) but in section 1.3 of the
Applicant Guidebook[1] it shows that for the first time it will be possible to
have IDN gTLDs, that is, gTLDs in any standardised script. Latin1 is gone.
This is big.

Sometimes the anglocentrism (and USA-centrism) on this site worries me.

[1] [http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/rfp-
clean-30may11-e...](http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/rfp-
clean-30may11-en.pdf)

~~~
qq66
The anglocentrism on this site is nearly entirely because the overwhelming
majority of developments in the computer industry, from the Mark I to the
iPad, have been created by Anglophones.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
The majority is actually not as overwhelming as it appears at first sight if
you think of people like Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum or Bjarne
Stroustrup.

BUT, I think most IT folks who are not natively anglophone have wholeheartedly
embraced the english language as the lingua franca of the industry and of
science in general. The practical advantages of having such a lingua franca
are simply overwhelming, and I really think that any step towards localization
is a step backwards for everybody.

~~~
qq66
Very good point. The development of Linux I think of as an English-speaking
effort, but that's because Linus conducted all the discussion about it in
English (because, as you say, English is the lingua franca of the technology
world).

So I guess the actual truth is that the vast majority of technology
developments have come from people who speak English (some Ruby stuff
excepted), not necessarily native English speakers.

------
nbpoole
I wonder who's going to register "localhost" or "mail"? ;-)

EDIT: There's a list of reserved TLDs that won't be allowed to be registered.
It includes localhost (but not mail)!

AFRINIC IANA-SERVERS NRO ALAC ICANN RFC-EDITOR APNIC IESG RIPE ARIN IETF ROOT-
SERVERS ASO INTERNIC RSSAC CCNSO INVALID SSAC EXAMPLE* IRTF TEST* GAC ISTF TLD
GNSO LACNIC WHOIS GTLD-SERVERS LOCAL WWW IAB LOCALHOST IANA NIC

(example and www have asterisks next to them because " _in addition to the
above strings, ICANN will reserve translations of the terms “test” and
“example” in multiple languages. The remainder of the strings are reserved
only in the form included above._ ")

~~~
code_duck
.mail would be excellent, really. All we need is $185,000, a stomach for
paperwork and an established company looking to expand into the registry
business.

~~~
arethuza
Shame they aren't allowing www - then we could have had com.foo.www to remind
us of JANET addressing.

~~~
lanstein
or java package names

------
Xuzz
How possible would it be for an individual to register one of these, assuming
they had the $185k figure I've seen floating around in articles related to
this? I doubt it would be a useful or smart investment, but I just wonder how
theoretically possible it would be for someone (or a small company they setup,
if ICANN requires that) to buy one for personal use (e.g., for myself,
me.grantpaul or something similar). _Edit: this appears to be impossible,
according to the guidebook: "Established corporations, organizations, or
institutions in good standing may apply for a new gTLD. Applications from
individuals or sole proprietorships will not be considered."_

Or, alternatively — could a (funded) startup buy one? E.g. could AirBnB buy
.bnb and then have sanfrancisco.bnb direct to the relevant San Francisco
AirBnB page?

~~~
extension
I've done my best to skim over the (huge) Applicant Guidebook and as far as I
can tell, you don't need any reason _per se_ to be granted a gTLD.

You have to be a corporation or organization with good legal standing and
financial stability, and you have to slog through an epic and expensive
beurocratic process. Your application can be rejected on various specific
grounds, some technical and some political.

But I don't see anything that explains the _purpose_ of gTLDs. So essentially,
if there is no particular reason for you not to have one, you can have one.

~~~
IgorPartola
Can I get .movie and sit on it until the movie industry pays me millions for
it?

~~~
extension
It does at least say that you need to run a registry. So you can't just squat
a gTLD. But I don't know, in general, how the prices and policies of the
registrar are evaluated and enforced. It might be in there somewhere but it
didn't jump out while scanning.

~~~
tankenmate
Registry fees alone will cost you a minimum of $100k a year even if you sell
no domains. You also need to submit business plans and "proof" of economic
viability; without those your application will be rejected. One factor that
most people aren't aware of is that ICANN will require you to have enough
money in reserve to keep the registry alive until a new buyer can be found in
case things go bad; this can be as much as $4 per domain sold in cash as
reserves. If you predict you'll sell 4 million domains you'd better account
for the fact you'll need to keep $16M in the bank.

------
michaelpinto
Maybe I'm just a hippy at heart, but that $185k really rubs me the wrong way.
It's a step back to the bad old days of broadcasting licenses that only big
companies can afford to buy — and given the stagnation of old media that makes
me a bit glum.

~~~
shawnee_
So $185k buys what essentially amounts to the right to "broker" a gTLD suffix.
This is building into the system a prohibitively high barrier to entry, which
almost guarantees that the interests of the conglomerates will once again
trump the small, innovative and more efficient.

More details on why the $185K --
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13835997>

~~~
michaelpinto
My fear is that brokers won't be the ones to buy it: For example a big media
company could get ".movies" to control a domain space and use it as an anti-
competitive tool against indie film makers who don't even get in the front
door. Look if Disney wants ".disney" I'm cool with that, but I don't like the
idea of Disney owning ".animation".

------
fletchowns
We might as well just go to an AOL Keywords system.

~~~
mcav
For a disturbingly large percentage of the population, Google _is_ that
system.

~~~
scott_s
Why is that disturbing?

~~~
mcav
I like to live in a fantasy land where everyone understands the basics of how
the Internet works. The reality that many people don't have the faintest idea
how to use a computer beyond the very, very basics -- and probably never will
-- is unfortunate, IMO.

~~~
bxc
They do have an understanding of how the internet works. You type what you
want into google and you get it. Maybe its not how the internet worked before,
but hey its nice to have to not keep downloading HOSTS.TXT.

------
shii
Alright, who has the cash for .yc TLD? Let's do news.yc, paul.yc for all our
yummy essays, apps.yc for applications, and search.yc for the purrfect HN
search.

Srsly ICANN will make more bank than it ever has now.

~~~
Raphael
Isn't 2-letter for countries? I think other TLDs have to be 3 or more.

~~~
arethuza
yc evaluates to yyc so you could use that

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_point_combinator#Y_combin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_point_combinator#Y_combinator)

~~~
arethuza
Actually, I got that wrong: yc -> cyc and you couldn't really use that!

------
jacques_chester
Losing the latin-1 restriction is a mixed bag.

The main advantage is that it's respectful to folks of other writing systems.

The main disadvantage is that unicode characters that look visually identical,
but which are logically distinctive, will be inevitably be used for more
elaborate phishing attempts.

~~~
cbr
With a tld? These get individual approval, with pretty strict scrutiny. No
ones going to let me register a new tld '.cоm' where the 'о' is cyrillic.

~~~
jacques_chester
Give it time. The safeguards will be steadily eroded by money.

------
tzury
if you used regular-expression to validate websites (and/or emails), you
better be prepared.

------
mjy78
I'm going to miss the Chrome (IE9 too) combined search/address bar. No more
will I be able to type in "haircut" or "bank" and have my browser know to kick
off a search as there's no clear distinction from TLDs anymore.

------
Aloisius
From a purely marketing perspective, non-standard top-level domains
(heretofore referred to NG AOL keywords) are a problem. If I see an ad for
<http://cameras.canon>, I'm not sure I recognize that as a URL.

If your email address is joe@sony.electronics, I'm not sure people are going
to understand it. Oddly, if it were just three character gTLDs, I think people
would be fine by it.

Still, I want .local. That way I can break every Mac on the planet all at
once.

------
pavpanchekha
I wonder what the process for getting a new one approved would look like. For
example, would Google be able to say, hey, we've got a large online presence,
can we have the "google" gTLD?

If not, we have problems like it being possible to continuously create new
TLDs and domain-squat on google.whatever or such.

If so, well, that's interesting, I actually can't wait for Google's url to be
<http://google>. Maybe one day even //google.

Good times, good times.

~~~
nbpoole
From [http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/factsheet-new-
gtld-...](http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/factsheet-new-gtld-
program-14apr11-en.pdf)

> _How much is the evaluation fee?_

 _The evaluation fee is estimated at US$185,000. Applicants will be required
to pay a US$5,000 deposit fee per requested application slot when registering.
The US$5,000 will be credited against the evaluation fee_

> _Are there any additional costs I should be aware of in applying for a new
> gTLD?_

 _Yes. Applicants may be required to pay additional fees in certain cases
where specialized process steps are applicable, and should expect to account
for their own business startup costs. See Section 1.5.2 of the Applicant
Guidebook._

And the guidebook ([http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/rfp-
clean-30may11-e...](http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/rfp-
clean-30may11-en.pdf)) mentions a number of different fees.

~~~
code_duck
I was trying to determine: what portion of that, if any, is refundable should
an application be turned down?

~~~
seriocomic
If you withdraw after the 1st phase of the application (application submitted
and all applicants are visibile for that TLD) then you are entitled to 70%
refund, the second phase (once all eligible applicants have withstood the
examination process and survived contention) 30%, when the bidding starts -
nada.

------
emilis_info
First thought: will have to rewrite my email regexps...

~~~
schrototo
If you have to rewrite them to accommodate new TLDs, you did them wrong in the
first place.

------
vsearch
The question is will the consumer buy into any new TLD's?

Seems to me that this is in part just a mechanism for ICANN to setup new
revenues for all concerned. And let's not forget with search engines trying to
make you, the average consumer, forget about TLD's altogether it seems a
battle is shaping between TLD's and the search engines.

------
danielsiders
Are we applying for .hacker or .yc? it'd be cool to be able to identify all yc
companies instantly by domain.

------
aj700
Doesn't linking to icann's front page mean that nobody can submit it again
without being sent to this item id?

~~~
wmf
The dupe checker only checks the cache, and stories expire fast enough.

------
rhdoenges
So much for neat and clever url hacks. Now everyone can do something like
del.icio.us or script.aculo.us. :(

~~~
exch
Everyone with $185k anyway.

~~~
mathgladiator
which for many big companies is a drop in the bucket for marketing... :(

------
panschk13
"The Board approved a plan to dramatically increase the number of Internet
domain name endings [..] from the current 22, which includes such familiar
domains as .com, .org and .net"

Where do those 22 come from? doesn't each contry have its own TLD?

~~~
abraham
Countries have ccTLDs which are "different" from TLDs. The 22 are generic
TLDs: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-
level_doma...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-
level_domains#Generic_top-level_domains)

------
metaprinter
So for a few hundred thousand dollars I can actually buy clownpenis.fart ? Of
course i'd have to hit the lotto first and even then saturday night live might
sue me... maybe i should have gone into IP Law?

------
romaniv
This would be a good thing if new TLDs represented the types of organizations,
e.g. .news, .reviews, .cars, .health...

I'm afraid the real TLDs will be either more random and meaningless or
trademarked.

------
ignifero
Anyone think it's a coincidence that ICANN does this just after plans are
announced by major browsers to eliminate the URL address bar? Are they rushing
to sell-off?

Also, what about the possibility of disputes? What if both Facebook and
twitter want to purchase '.social'? Who will resolve the dispute and on what
grounds?

~~~
Sayter
The meeting in question was for final approval; ICANN approved plans for
opening up gTLD's back in 2008.

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/26/icann_approves_custo...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/26/icann_approves_customized_top_level_domains/)

This didn't suddenly happen overnight; everyone was informed three years in
advance. Just to illustrate how long ago that was in internet years: the first
Windows public beta of Google Chrome wasn't even released until after ICANN's
initial announcement.

------
trezor
The necessity of this, the price for which it is offered and all those other
matters aside...

Iirc if you run your own DNS-server/bind-instance (for DNS lookups, not just
responding to internet DNS requests), you have a options file which contains
references to forwarders for all the TLDs.

How will managing new TLDs from a server/bind-perspective play out? Will there
be a new, hidden ".global" TLD you can forward, or "default" forwarder you can
configure to handle this?

Basically I'm not sure how this will play out with my bind-setup and if it
will require any action from me as a server-admin, apart from "apt-get
update". Anyone here have any inside info?

~~~
JoachimSchipper
Your DNS server will simply ask the root servers. _Those_ are listed in a file
(root.hint on BIND) and will tell you which server is authoritative for the
TLD in question.

I'm not aware of any setups explicitly storing the TLD servers themselves (of
course, they'll be in cache.)

------
ignifero
...Brought to you by ICANN(R), the organization that managed to make
misspellnigs a viable business.

------
oinopion
Cool, they have just broken most of email regexps.

~~~
heyimfromreddit
Funny, but email validations should already just check that the address
contains an @ symbol and leave it at that.

~~~
mdpm
uh, nope. Email validation should check there's a valid MX record for the
domain in question, and leave it at _that_.

~~~
Luyt
Or a valid address record. Mailers fall back to 'A' records in the absence of
a 'MX' record.

~~~
mdpm
yes, and we could continue into checking something is actually listening for
mail there, etc. But you get my point :)

