.Info, .Biz, .Behind The Scenes At ICANN 126
You may have heard about ICANN's announcement that .info and .biz will soon be available for registration. Naturally, the deal ICANN wants to cut with the .info and .biz people has been negotiated in secret, by "ICANN staff", without public input. (Who needs public input anyway - ICANN's proposed budget for next year eliminates all funding for the At-Large elections.) And of course, by the time you want to register anything in those domains, it'll be gone - trademark holders get a special express line to register domains in the new .TLD's before they are generally available. However, ICANN neglected to mention that they need approval from the Department of Commerce before messing with the root servers. The DoC is in the process of approving Verisign's deal to keep control of the .com registry forever; they're daring to ask Verisign to give up .net earlier, and Verisign is threatening to walk out on negotiations - as if we'd be hurt.
Re:Who came up with (Score:1)
Re:What are the current At large members doing? (Score:1)
Re:Who came up with (Score:1)
Re:.biz (Score:3)
Gee, it would be a shame if someone registered a .biz domain
with ICANN and then later found out that sometimes when people
type in a corresponding URL, those people end up at someone
else's web site, because someone else already owned that name.
They might get the idea of suing ICANN for fraud.
Seriously, this is something to play up and publicize: that ICANN's .biz domains have a lot less value than ICANN says
they do. Let's drive the price down and make the whole
thing an embarrassment.
One solution for Networks Solutions (Score:3)
I love being cabalistic... (Score:1)
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
It doesn't matter (Score:5)
The "speculative" top-level domains such as
The mAsses don't even necessarily understand that if a clause doesn't end in ".com" it's valid and it's a net address. As late as a year ago Jakob "Usabilty" Nielsen was encouraging people to continue to use "www" so that people would understand immediately that you're talking about a web page address.
Furthermore, with only, um, ODDITY sites using
That will only happen with domains where the domain holders will USE and PROMOTE their domain names. The big winners, I would expect, would be
The registrars will promote the existence of the domains and the importance of registering them. So we can expect
And
Re:This doesn't help increase name space (Score:1)
Point taken.
Re:This doesn't help increase name space (Score:2)
If you were a porn operator, you wouldn't want to be easily filtered.
If you were a smart porn operator, you would. One of the biggest problems the porn industry faces is legislation to "protect the children." If porn were easily filterable, then the protecting the children is easy, and no longer a good reason to persecute the purvayors of porn. There's already a huge amount of legitimate demand for porn, they don't need to try to sneak up on you with it.
Re:This doesn't help increase name space (Score:2)
The existence of your "smart porn operator" is meaningless in the face of the existence of all the others; ".xxx" or ".sex" only has a use if all porn is there, and that ain't happening.
Porn sites will probably always exist in regular domains. But if they can avoid persecution by the government by switching to a different domain, I think that most would do so. The rest would be left to fend for themselves against whatever legislation Congress dreams up. While it may not be a perfect solution, it's a heck of a lot better than current filtering software. I'm still not completely decided about whether it's a good idea to have a porn TLD or not. It definitely worries me the same way that firearm registration worries me. Such things are usually just the first step in the process of banning them.
Re:Giving Trademark holders priority... (Score:5)
Second, the purpose of .biz was to alleaviate the conjestion in the .com domain, yet the trademark owners will go first. Do you think that Apple Moving and Storage, or McDonald's Hardware will get first shot over Apple Computers or McDonald's Resturants? Of course not. The preregistration for biz should only be allowed if you don't already own a 'reasonable' name in the .com arena, and if you already do, well, get in line with the rest of us. And domain names that are not in line with the company name should be disallowed at this time; eg Verizon should not be able to register Verizonsucks.biz, unless they legally change their name to that.
At Large Budget not extinguished (Score:2)
Under Budget Priorities and Issues...
5. Complete the At Large study and implement those recommendations from the study that are adopted by the Board. see note F below.
(f) At Large Membership Project and Study. At its recent Melbourne meeting, the ICANN Board allocated $450,000 in reserve funds to cover the costs of the study of At Large membership which is currently in progress. Of the total amount, $200,000 will be expended in the current fiscal year (in addition to $250,000 in one time funds already expended on the At Large election earlier in the fiscal year), and $250,000 will be expended in the next fiscal year during the months July through November.
The following is my interpretation (and I will probably query Auerbach and the At Large Committee about it, too):
However, I am no ICANN expert. I suggest contacting your representative. Here is what Auerbach, who is less optimistic than I am, posted in the forum:
http://www.atlargestudy.org/forum_archive/msg00063 .shtml [atlargestudy.org]
Keep watching the skies...
-l
why are they spamming me about that? (Score:1)
Subject: Important Information:
Subject: Important Information:
Subject:
Subject: Important Information:
Transcript of message:
Attention: Internet Domain Registrant
The new top level domain names with extensions .BIZ, .INFO, .PRO,
and .NAME have just been approved by global internet authorities
and will be released soon, but don't wait until then to register.
These domains are available NOW for pre-registration at:
http://www.NewRegistryExtensions.com on a first come, first serve
basis.
"While .com names hold the most prestige, the next frontier is
the new suffixes -.info, .biz, and .pro -likely to become available
later this year..."
-BUSINESSWEEK MAGAZINE, April 16, 2001.
It is expected that over 3 million of these new domain names will be registered in the first few minutes when registration officially opens later this year. If your domain name is important to you, be prepared and pre-register now. Protect your domain name from cybersquatters and speculators. We have the premier pre-registration engine to help you to secure the domain you want. Over 250,000 names have already been queued into our list and good names are going fast. Do not wait until the last minute. Go to http://www.NewRegistryExtensions.com now to pre-register.
##...##
This message is sent in compliance with the new email bill section 301. Per Section 301, Paragraph (a)(2)(C) of S. 1618 and is not intended for residents in the State of WA, NV, CA & VA. If you have received this mailing in error, or do not wish to receive any further mailings pertaining to this topic, simply send email to: off_list_tld@yahoo.com. We respect all removal requests.
##...##
Just why SPAMing?!?!
Re:It doesn't matter (Score:1)
Hey, wait a minute there....
We need MANY MANY TLD's (Score:2)
Imagine having 50 to 100 TLD's (aside from the country code TLD's of course). There'd be plenty of room for everyone.
Back when FM radio was first introduced, the FCC had a rule which specified that a radio station could not transmit the same programming on its AM and FM stations. This was eventually changed, but it promoted enough differentiation to give FM its own identity. Something similar could be done with TLD's as well.
Personally, I think there need to be more non-profit TLD's available.
--
Infinite TLDs (Score:2)
Here is how this might work:
Anyone can invent a TLD and register a domain name with that TLD. If the TLD does not exist, the domain will be registered but will not be accessible yet. If enough people (more than 1000?) create and pay for domain under a new TLD it will be created. Nobody owns a TLD - anyone can register any name in it through any registrar, just like anyone can register under
Now apple.records, apple.furniture and apple.computers don't have to argue.
One of the advantages of having lots and lots of TLDs is that trademark owners will find it hard to register their name under all TLDs. This captures the original spirit of trademark law where a trademark is not global - it only applies in a specific area of business or geographical region.
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Re:.biz (Score:1)
Other fine HOWTOs are found at ORSC's [support.open-rsc.org].
--
Why it's a bad thing (Score:1)
This process could be made much more fair if it were made clear that for-profit companies could only claim
Domain hijackers (Score:1)
The application by IOD [iodesign.com], a current operator of .web, received an inaccurate assessment [icann.org] and was rejected. However, because of the dispute, ICANN also avoided giving .web to
Afilias [afilias.com], and assigned them .info instead.
ICANN wasn't entirely dismissive of IOD, perhaps because IOD actually paid the exorbitant $50,000 fee and applied for it. IOD has also demonstrated a willingness to fight for .web in their Federal lawsuit [adlawbyrequest.com] against CORE [corenic.org], another .web operator, for unfair competition and trademark infringement.
Inconsistently, ICANN ignored a similar conflict with .biz, and gave it to NeuLevel [neulevel.com], ignoring Pacific Root [pacificroot.net]'s operation of the legitimate .biz domain [biztld.net] for the past six years.
Re:soon to be expensive domains? (Score:1)
Trademark holders DON'T get a special express line (Score:2)
Sheesh! Cliff, this is just badly researched.
Where .biz is concerned, trademark and intellectual property holders (the people who would probably SUE you if you register their name in the new TLD space) get to lodge their CLAIM to their trademark or IP before registration of any kind starts.
After lodging the IP Claim, they still have to go back to a Registrar and PRE-REGISTER along with EVERYONE ELSE who is pre-registering domain names AT THE SAME TIME.
The IP Claim system is NOT a domain name registration system in any way shape or form.
Re:This doesn't help increase name space (Score:1)
Exactly. The whole .biz idea is flawed from the start ... What a scam ... I wish everyone would boycott it but unfortunately as soon as SOME people start using it then we all have to, to protect our namespaces.
And .info ... gawd ... how incredibly lame that is. *Everything* is "info".
I want to see some mainstream news articles that point these things out.
--
Re:We don't need either of them... (Score:2)
It's not easy [faqs.org].
--
Re:.biz (Score:2)
According to their list of TLDs [alternic.org], Alternic does not support a
Re:Best site about ICANN on the net (Score:1)
And the main point is: USE ALTERNATIVE ROOTS
Use em, and encourage others to use em (eg, your ISP, or your network admin).
Just as Linux and BSD's freed us from the hegemony of Micros~1, so the alternative roots can do the same to Netsol/Verisign and the ICANN mobsters.
For that matter, I would like to see /. and other sites register on alternative domains, or even offer up some of their excess advertising inventory to publicise them.
Best site about ICANN on the net (Score:5)
http://www.paradigm.nu/icann/icannstage.html [paradigm.nu]
Re:Giving Trademark holders priority... (Score:2)
This is why
Also, first-come-first-served is hardly fair when timing will come down to milliseconds and be determined by your ping time to the registrar. Even without guarantees, corporations aren't going to be stupid enough to not buy their domain names a second time. They also have the money to have 50 trained monkeys click "reload" until they get through and buy the domain. Can you say DDoS? Giving priority at least avoids that initial rush...
Giving Trademark holders priority... (Score:5)
.info and
Furthermore, there needs to be the creation of a TLD only for personal use (no trademark lawsuits or WIPO-whining allowed). If all these things happen, this could actually be a good thing. "If"...
I know, I know, given ICANN's track record, it's not looking good for reason and rationality, but we can hope (and write letters to congress, if you happen to be American).
Re:The right answer (that they didn't use) (Score:2)
TLDs are 2-letter by country:
Countries are "naming authorities" which can resolve squabbles over who is entitled to what.
Special TLDs of ".com", ".org", ".edu", ".int" are reserved for Internationally-registered corporate/ nonprofit marks; e.g., apple.com. So most of the important stuff stays as is.
By convention, countries use
Except that most of these are very much Americanisms. e.g. other English speaking countries prefer "co" to "com", etc. They may well not be appropriate in French, German, Spanish, Italian, etc.
In the case of tradmarks you also need to be able to distinguish between the type of business. Since it's perfectly possible for two companies in the same place to have the same tradmarked name.
Re:This doesn't help increase name space (Score:2)
Actually there is something which can quite trivally be done. That is to use the system in the way it was designed.
Folks should just realize that it just doesn't matter all that much.
Sticking in more and more top level domains does matter. Since all of them need alterations to the root servers.
Re:SLD's have nothing to do with ISP's (Score:2)
The USA is rather unique in not using geographic domains.
Re:We need MANY MANY TLD's (Score:2)
Or by instead treating domains as analagous to postal addresses or telephone numbers. Maybe you can only have a
Re:Giving Trademark holders priority... (Score:2)
Re:Giving Trademark holders priority... (Score:3)
Seriously. All this new-TLD bulldada is going to be a total waste of time if *.com = *.biz
Domain Names are for Quiche eaters (Score:3)
Re:Infinite TLDs (Score:1)
Verisign forever?!? NO!!!!!! (Score:3)
- - - - -
Re:Squatters (Score:2)
You can find more than a hundred "interesting" domain name possibilities at Peckerheads Domain Board [peckerheads.com].
Re:This always bugs me... (Score:1)
biz & com, what's the diff? (Score:2)
FUD, Verisign and *.biz (Score:2)
FUD comes into the game by Congressmen/women who've forgotten to take vitamin clue, and don't fully understand tech, often becoming confused by most of the matters thrown before them. So most are going to be quick to believe the obscure information Verisign throws at them thinking that Verisign is a martyr or meat behind whatever they (Verisign's people) place in their (congressmen/women's) path.
*.Biz I browsed the top post claiming business should have first dibs on registering a
As for ICANN, its truly a shameful organization thats leaning towards catering to their own needs when they had previously set out to make sure no one entity took control of the
venona: hardcore crypto [antioffline.com]
Comment removed (Score:4)
Re:Who needs them? (Score:3)
While I can't confess to completely understanding TLD operation, it'd seem that since ISP networks are required to recognize the domains offered by the likes of Verisign, etc., and by recognizing them, establish the value of the name by allowing their millions of business and residential subscribers to access websites using the names, then Verisign and the likes need to pay a license to the ISPs.
In the absence of any alternative, however, the ISP's threat of not recognizing the domains is absent.
So, is there an alternative? Can an ISP decide to not recognize
Or maybe UUNET needs to have its own
*scoove*
Re:Verisign forever?!? NO!!!!!! (Score:5)
Their performance?
It takes a minimum of four weeks to get a response to any submission.
In the past four-month period, we've had a problem with an unresponsive city-level subdomain admin who doesn't even office in the respective city, has imposed arbitrary charges for all applications which exceed
The discussion with Verisign has been far from amusing. Four weeks to get a response to a request about the situation, telling us to submit a request with a note about the situation. Request submitted. Another four weeks to have a canned report bounce back saying "this subdomain is already registered" (yea, we knew that, that's why we put the note on there as you asked us to). (Their agreement also says to not bug them unless it's been at least many weeks, since they're busy, you know...)
Another four weeks for a response from an idiot saying "you got the canned response because it is registered."
Another four weeks for a response from someone saying "there's nothing we can do."
Another three weeks for a response from the original person saying "have you tried asking the subdomain company about the situation" (I wouldn't have wasted months dealing with Verisign if I hadn't already discovered that this domain squatting "company" is a one-man band who is camping on the subdomain he's not entitled to).
Finally, after playing in Verisign's voicemail jail for hours, I found someone who gave me the most candid response yet: ".us domains? Well, I wouldn't recommend those because they don't work very well. You should get a
And I wonder why
*scoove*
Re:Giving Trademark holders priority... (Score:1)
E.G. Apple has apple.com => applecomputer.biz
This way apple records could get apple.biz.
There is no fair way to dispute between apple computer and apple records except on a first come first serve basis, which probably isn't very fair at all unless there is a centralized register. (There may be a centralized directory, but register.com and verisign and the countless others will have to post your request to that directory and who knows how corrupt that process is...)
This always bugs me... (Score:2)
-Puk
We Did (Score:2)
After proving that it could be easily done, we shut it all down to avoid the risk of polluting the top level servers, but we proved it could be done, and done easily.
We don't need either of them... (Score:4)
soon to be expensive domains? (Score:1)
phil.
Would it really (Score:1)
Re:i want... (Score:1)
even though it's not part of the new .biz or .info, I always wanted to pick up "stuckinacabi.net".
That way my email is neafevoc.is@stuckinacabi.net :)
--
Neafevoc
i want... (Score:2)
Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw,
Re:.biz (Score:2)
Recognition is one thing, namespace collisions are another. ICANN could very well have simply ignored .biz and used another string, one not already operated by another party. That is, after all, what they decided to do in the case of .web. Their decision to approve the .biz was irresponsible. It was meant simply to emphasize that they are in total control of the root and if you don't play by their rules you get stepped on. Classic monopolist stuff.
It is important to remember that not everyone who exists outside of ICANN is a 'wildcat squatter'. Some of this crap exists in the alt DNS community, of course, but most of us are committed to the ideal of a user-owned and operated namespace which exists beyond the control of a single entity. Many of us resent being milked by netsol for what is, after all, a very simple service. Why do domains cost as much as they do? Because the business is, at present, a monopoly. The damn things should cost no more than a dollar or two.
Should the new.net folk be allowed the fifty odd plum domains they have started selling just because they were the pushiest?
Last time I checked they were only claiming 20 TLDs. And, yes, the new.net domains which are not colliders should be recognized, as far as I'm concerned. Of course, new.net does not play nice with other alt DNS groups like OpenNIC. Most of the 20 TLDs they claim were already in operation long before they incorporated.
Claim your namespace.
Re:.biz (Score:2)
The deposit idea is an okay one. Problem being that many folks in the world don't have that kind of cash available. In some of the OpenNIC TLDs, we simply restrict individuals to a total of 5 concurrent domain registrations.
Claim your namespace.
Re:Time to dump the old root zone (Score:3)
Claim your namespace.
Re:.biz (Score:4)
And to answer your question, no, the issue was never resolved. ICANN very clearly decided to simply ignore the existence of alternate roots and prior claims to TLD strings. (though they are inconsistent in this stance. Their decision not to approve a new .web TLD was clearly related to the existence of a prior claim [internetnews.com] by Image Online.
Yet another example of heavy handed authoritarianism on the part of ICANN, and yet another reason for all of us who care about the DNS as a public resource to dwitch our DNS to an alternate root system. Visit the OpenNIC [unrated.net] to find out how [unrated.net]. It's easy.
Claim your namespace.
P2P DNS (Score:1)
Re:P2P DNS (Score:1)
What are the current At large members doing? (Score:4)
Re:Bypass root servers with P2P and Cryptography (Score:2)
Why not use something like this to get rid of TLDs altogether? Instead of
I want to go to "www.debian.org"
why not go to "Debian"? You could also use a mechanism like this to differentiate Apple Computer from Apple Records, and maybe also to localize yourself, e.g., yahoo.com vs. yahoo.co.uk.
I suspect that'll be the Next Big Thing as DNS gets so complicated, fragmented and self-overlapping that remembering conventional URLs ceases to be much easier than remembering numeric IP addresses (or your friends' yahoo/hotmail/AOL email addresses of the week).
How they're dealing with trademarks. (Score:2)
I'm assuming that means something like Microsoft can get Microsoft.info, but not MicrosoftSucks.info, Microsoftblows.info, so on. I don't think that that would be that bad where they get their trademarked domain name, only when it's an exact match to their registered trademark, which has to be registered before October 2000 and must be a nationaly recognized trademark, whatever that means.
At the .biz registry, www.neulevel.com [neulevel.com], it says something close to how .biz will be handeling trademark issues. They are haveing the initial trademark(IP) phase starting on May 21st where the trademark owners will get preference. The trademark .biz domain must exactly match a company's trademark claim before they start a dispute process. Their policies arn't as clear as the .info domains.
Personaly, I don't much care about the .biz domains, but I'm looking forward to grabbing a .info domain or two. It looks like the .info folks look like they are handleing the trademark issue pretty well, you get your 'exact' trademark text first. Hopefully it won't turn into a trademark free-for-all.
Re:Giving Trademark holders priority... (Score:2)
www.mattel.dealwithit
--------------------------
Re:Who came up with (Score:2)
Do you really think they'll stop hanging around
Re:Who came up with (Score:2)
But how can you control the
Who came up with (Score:5)
Time to dump the old root zone (Score:4)
How can this monopoly be bypassed?
Simple.
Bind needs to be configured to have a different set of name servers for the default root zone. All distributions of Linux, IBM, HP, Sun, SGI, Apple, Microsoft, etc. should use the new set of zone servers in thier DNS server software configs. ICANN will be effectivly ignored, and everyone will be happy (Well, except for Verisign (network solutions) and thier cronies.)
Why should the major OS vendors support this?
I think Microsoft would LOVE to have the
I would like to see redhat.linux, debian.linux, etc.
It would be nice to have all the p0rn secured at
The new TLD group can enforce a REASONABLE set of policies including anti-squatting, require a minimum number of e-signatures for new TLD's (with some exceptions) etc.
While it's not reasonable to flush out a full plan in this post, it's doable. While it may not be perfect, it would be a HELL of a lot better than what we have now...
Re:yep (Score:2)
(at http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives/archivesmai l/mail62.html#lemonde) :
[...] A few years ago I was asked what it would take to build a Lunar colony. My answer was: "Two billion if you give me the money and get out of the way. If you advertise a prize for the first Lunar Colony to last two years, that should probably be about ten billion dollars. Alternatively, if you go to the Air Force or Navy with specs you won't change and let them do it black (ie without having to comply with the Armed Service Procurement Regulations, which was 25 linear feet of loose-leaf notebooks when I was in the business, and is now much larger, and includes handicapped access and much else) you would probably get bids at $10 billion; if you make them do the paperwork and follow the ASPRs then probably $25 billion. NASA has already said it will take $85 billion and 20 years if everything goes as planned. With NASA nothing has EVER been cheaper or taken less time than the estimate." I have no real reason to change that now.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
Re:yep (Score:2)
Of course, with the hype that we have had with the dot com debacles, it is hard to remember when there were actually endevors when bunches of folks would get together and get something worthwhile done. These days most folks think that the only way that could happen would be at the point of a gun. And that all great endevors are naturally acts of slavery and enslavement. Many are, but not all. The early days of Nasa, in going to the moon, before it becames a boondoggle, for example hand a higher goal.
It is very possible that the great pyramids were built entirely with volunteers.
But the thought is completely unbelievable to modern folks with their fashionably cynical outlook. I can remeber talking with some guy on a talk show about what the big deal was aboutjack kennedy, that he was a womanizer, etc etc etc. He was totally clueless to the notion that kennedy, whatever his faults, had somehow given a breath of life to the dreams that people had, made those hopes and dreams come very much alive, and gave strength to people based on the high mindedness of these ideals. This guy was totally clueless to this, because the biggest dream he had were his fantasies for the weekend. It was outside his reality completely.
This kind of hope and freedom was dangerous, which is why, despite all of his many faults, he had to be struck down by those opposed to it. The dream had to die.
Now in this context you can get a bunch of people willing to accomplish something, and they will not be slaves. But you have to have a legit honest real goal, not a dot-com come-on with carrot and stick. Something practical that you can put you hands own. Something worth living for and giving for and sacrificing for.
I can understand that many folks don't have anything like that. This becomes a road to a smaller, more fragile, more dangerous world.
But this fits into the cynical outlook in the original topic, where we rest assured that the government can be trusted to squash new technology by means of the appropriate government agency.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
Re:yep (Score:3)
There has been a long standing tradition of squashing technology via official bureaucratic incompetance in govern in the USA.
You have to go know your history on this, but it goess back to things like the assembly line manufacture of rifles just after the revolution (date?), Robert Foulton's Steam Engine, and even far more recently as seen in NASA.
For Example, NASA turned from a place to get things done to a place to park the development of technology while developing boondoggles and pork barrels. It has turned into a place to squash the development of space flight. For an interesting take on this, check out Jerry Pournelle's idea that you could have a contest for Business to go into space, or go to the moon, setting up a permanent base, and have a 10 Billion dollar prize for the winner.
So don't worry, the government will take its' time, but will eventually come up with some agency to stall and stop the development of the Internet until it is nothing but a government or private office with the efficiency of the post office and the warmth and caring of the IRS.Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
New.net claims 34% of Internet users (Score:2)
New.net [new.net] operates .kids, .xxx, .mp3, .inc and a bunch more without the nod from ICANN. Two days ago, they announced that Prodigy had jumped on board [new.net]. They also have agreements with Earthlink, Juno, @Home, NetZero, and mp3.com and they claim 34% of Internet users can view their TLDs.
simple (Score:2)
Why keep any gTLDs? (Score:2)
This is something I haven't understood about the idea of adding new TLDs -- and the ICANN process of adding new TLDs in particular -- from the beginning. Adding new TLDs and then giving big corporate trademark holders first dibs does nothing to alleviate congestion, furthers confusion, but in the process gets the registrars a fair bit of extra cash -- especially since they know companies are responsible for enforcing their own trademarks and will therefore feel compelled to register mcdonalds.biz and coke.biz even though they've already got the .com real estate.
If alleviating congestion is really the goal, wouldn't it make more sense to reduce the number of TLDs? Why not at least get rid of the generic Top Level Domain name space and use the country codes (and .int) exclusively?
After a full expiration cycle (time for domain names to move), the current .com could be subsumed into .com.us -- and similarly for .org , .net , and .edu . If the decision makers in .us or .ru want to have a .biz.us or .biz.ru , then fine, let them add it.
BT.com could go (back?) to simply being BT.co.uk , for example. Companies doing business in multiple countries could establish domain names in each country, but without a .com , there'd no longer be a special .com allure that would lead to any one TLD becoming disproportionately overcrowded.
Somewhat related, but not a necessary part of this: why not treat the country TLD codes similarly to how flags are regarded on ships in international waters? A cruise ship can be manned by people from all over, carry American tourists, and operate exclusively in the Carribean, but be registered in Norway. During the Iran-Iraq war, Kuwaiti oil tankers were re-flagged as American and thus brought under American protection. Let .ca , .us, .uk , and all the rest set their own standards and see who wants a domain under their TLD.
Squatters (Score:3)
I am sick of looking for a free domain and finding its taken by "Dirty Domain Squatters Inc"
mo money, mo problems (Score:2)
If there's no money involved, it suddenly becomes a non-issue.
Maybe now is the time to move to a local naming system - I could be www.justin.christopher.walnut.ca.us, Coca Cola could have www.coke.com.us, etc.
The problem is that change will never happen, because you need a critical mass of ISP's to switch to make it work, and I don't see that happening in the near future.
What it really needs... (Score:4)
yep (Score:3)
It gets even worse. (Score:4)
So what's the beneficial use of this piece of spyware? URLs that contain New.net's TLDs (such as .kids) are routed through the spyware successfully. However, I suspect that there's a bit of traffic monitoring and submission of logs to a server somewhere. Either way, it's a very bad piece of spyware; the only reliable way to remove it is either by using Ad-Aware or by reinstalling Windows.
It's truly sad when a company resorts to spyware when they can't get their way. ICANN should at least look into this, since it's a blatant violation of their policies.
Re:We don't need either of them... (Score:3)
This may be slightly counter-intuitive, given the goal of a more democratic and free TLD management solution, but inreality there is a minimum efficient scale for providers of TLD service. The scale is quite large (where size is measured in that if the customer base), and to expect any smaller provider to effectively deviver the service is unrealistic.
--CTH
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Network Solutions Sucks Ass (Score:2)
I'm at my wits end with NetSol and about to go postal.
Scumbags.
Re:biz & com, what's the diff? (Score:2)
Re:This doesn't help increase name space (Score:2)
That's the dumbest one of all. If you were a porn operator, you wouldn't want to be easily filtered. So you'd keep another address as well. So nothing is achieved.
Re:This doesn't help increase name space (Score:2)
Please explain www.whitehouse.com [whitehouse.com] in the context of your pie-in-the-sky theory.
The porn industry has a (rather large) least-common-denominator segment which will attempt to gain market share using any and all means possible.
The existence of your "smart porn operator" is meaningless in the face of the existence of all the others; ".xxx" or ".sex" only has a use if all porn is there, and that ain't happening.
Re:This doesn't help increase name space (Score:2)
"The government"? There are 200-some independent (or independent-except-for-the-Queen) jurisdictions out there, many of them happy to have porn operators' business if it becomes too much trouble in the US (which I don't anticipate).
Porn is one of those things that, without complete universal disapproval, will always be around. Too many people want it, and they're all willing to be sneaky about it. When I was growing up, there was always a kid in every class who had a dirty magazine in his locker. Not much has changed, and I doubt much will. All the fretting and hand-wringing is a waste of time and, of more concern to me, all-too-frequently serves as an entrée for sweeping censorship that impacts my ability to conveniently get information I do want (like health and political info). Let's focus energy on positive things and let the merely tawdry sort itself out.
Re:.biz (Score:2)
Re:.biz (Score:2)
You can fault ICANN for many reasons but telling the .web and .biz squatters to take a long walk off a short pier is not one of them.
The wildcat squatters were told when they began that they would not be recognized.
Should the new.net folk be allowed the fifty odd plum domains they have started selling just because they were the pushiest?
More to running dot.com than BIND (Score:3)
Turn off the root name servers and the Internet grinds to a halt over about 24 hours.
The offer to run .biz for 90% of the VeriSign fee for dotcom is not half as generous as it appears. Serving dotcom is much more expensive because it has more of the high traffic sites. Aslo all the browsers are at this point programmed to look in dotcom as part of the search algorithm. The dotbiz domain will have much less traffic per name so the bid looks pretty high.
Equally the assumption that DNS needs to be hierarchical is now bogus. The fact that dotcom can be supported demonstrates that a flat namespace could be supported - dotcom has consistently contained approximately as many names as all the TLDS put together had 9-12 months before.
Of course in a flat namespace .web and .biz lose interest since comapnies would shift to names like www.microsoft. and www.cnn.
Re:Giving Trademark holders priority... (Score:2)
And until now I'd thought that the coke.biz belonged to the Columbians and Florida alone...
Re:Who came up with (Score:2)
Re:yep (Score:2)
I don't like the US government, but pretending that government involvement in Internet and the DNS system is new shows an amusing lack of knowledge of recent history.
Re:Giving Trademark holders priority... (Score:2)
Also, in some countries lastnames aren't commonly used, and people normally use different denotations as a replacement depending on usage, and hence have a large set of options for choosing a name to find something that doesn't clash.
Further countries (at least Spanish and Portuguese speaking, which account for a few hundred million people), can use one, two or four last names depending on whether they use only their fathers first lastname, their mother and their fathers first lastnames, or the first and last of both. The last option is uncommon, but even the first two reduce the problem of duplicates immensely.
Based on the research done for that we also have perhaps the worlds best statistics on occurence of names, and by far most of the worlds population have rather uncommon name combinations. For the ones that don't (like John Smith, of which there are at least 50.000), it will undoubtably be a bit more difficult, and they might end up having to resort to another TLD to get their "ideal" domain.
Alternatively, all countrycodes are reserved, and if we are allowed to, we may in the future allow registrations under .name as well, or
apply for different language TLD strings (.jina, .nom etc.), and that might expand the personal
namespace further. Obviously this relies on ICANNs
support for it.
Re:Giving Trademark holders priority... (Score:2)
It may be an option in the future, perhaps particularly to deal with the John Smiths, or other people stuck with very common names.
But in any case we would need to get ICANN to buy into something like that too - ICANN impose a lot of restrictions on us (and the other gTLD operators), because we don't have any competition within our namespace. That includes for instance quality requirements, but also limits on how much we are allowed to charge for services, and how the service we provides should be structured.
And there are other ways of expanding the namespace too: Allowing registrations under .name, or applying for more TLD strings in other languages. We're not going to
do either from the outset, but if people like the
service, and ICANN is favorable to it, who knows.
Re:Giving Trademark holders priority... (Score:4)
The ".name" TLD will give preferential treatment to persons who can demonstrate that the name they register is their personal name, or a nickname they use.
Take a look at our webpage [theglobalname.org]
SLD's have nothing to do with ISP's (Score:3)
Every ISP that I know of uses the same root servers as the rest of us, or if they don't, they'll still be able to resolve .us, .ca and the like. Country-specific domains have been around since almost the beginnig, just that the people in charge never enforced the use of them. .com, .net, and .org just became 'what people use'. When was the last time you've seen a .us domain?
In order for region-specific domains to PROPERLY work, ICANN/verisign/et al have to STOP allowing the use of .com/.net/.org (except maybe multinationals), forcing everyone to use their country specific domains. Unfortunately, the predominant mindset in the USA is 'the internet is American, and the rest of the world can use their country TLD's. This has nothing whatsoever to do with ISP's switching.
.biz (Score:4)
I mean, with ICANN being based on consensus building and cooperation, I assume they did resolve the issue didn't they? After all, not resolving the issue would look, well, caustic, pointlessly uncooperative for the sake of, well, spoiling other communities on the Internet. I mean, isn't the whole reason Cerf et al thinks that making ICANN democratically accountable is bunk based on the idea that ICANN is founded on the principles of cooperation and consensus building?
Are we likely to see a major ISP turn around and point their root servers at a rival any time soon, or do we have to put up with this crap forever more?
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Re:Domain Names are for Quiche eaters (Score:2)
The right answer (that they didn't use) (Score:2)
Re: the point made about apple.biz versus apple.com: right on the money. ICANN has created a huge mess that should keep lawyers happy for years...
Here's what they should have done:
Examples:
Oh, yeah, one more thing. All those names are UTF8.
Re:Giving Trademark holders priority... (Score:2)
This doesn't help increase name space (Score:5)
So now when someone registers their
The whole point of new TLD's is to be able to have the same name used in different TLD's so that similarly/identically named organizations can have peaceful co-existence of their websites. The way they are going about this is defeating that, guaranteeing not much more than 2 identical copies of the
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Re:Bypass root servers with P2P and Cryptography (Score:2)
Why not use something like this to get rid of TLDs altogether?
You're right, of course. Under this scheme, the "." in "debian.org" becomes just another character. It could just as easily be called "Debian", as you suggested.
But I think, in a truly global namespace, there is still a need for hierarchy. How would one distinguish between the domain registered by the Debian operating system, and that of the Debian Brewery in Bumfarg, Germany (I made that up)? A hierarchy of sorts could, I suppose, be enforced by one's choice of nameserver. Consider:
This seems like an infinitely better system to me. No publisher chooses his own name, the "nameserver" handles that role. Nameservers which come up with a useful hierarchy flourish because they are used most often. However, as a publisher, I can no longer tell somebody: "Check out my website at 'debian.org'", because the name of the site will vary depending on the user's nameserver. Maybe now he has to say "check out my site at what ACME Nameserver calls 'debian.org'." Maybe this isn't a bad thing, and maybe it would evolve into a single hierarchy that makes good sense to almost everybody.
I'm very interested in talking with somebody about working all of this out. You can e-mail me at "marc at mozhon dot net" if you want to continue the discussion outside this forum.
MarcIcann and other various corruption (Score:2)
Copyright Act, software patent stupidity, the whole DeCss mess.., M$ password backdoors in IE, govt towing the line with spammers and data collectors, politicians for sale to the highest bidder, the napster mess.., H1Bs, NSA cryptokeys
in M$ windows (plus a myrid of other 'call home to papa spyware in it')...etc..etc... it just goes on and on and on..
Is it just me, or does it seem, that '1984' is looking more and more real every day and the govt. has entirely sold us out to the highest corporate bidder. It is like we need an 'open source' GPL political party that is tech savvy, and not sold out to the highest bidder.. If napster could grow to such a force.. why not this?
Is it just me, or is it really that the 'system' has gone corrupt broken beyond repair, and we have to do sometime... all my rights have been trampled on, packaged, and sold to the highest bidding company, and highest bribe (and usually) clueless politician...
What to do? Riot with the Seattlers? start a new internet based grassroots political party?
[actually I am not an anarchist or anything, just a normal guy.. but what I have seen happen, especially in the last year or so, re: the above.. is just truly astonishing... ordinary people have just entirely lost control..]
Re: 1984... with all the M$ backdoors and hacks, I wouldn't be surprised that after we all 'register WinME' with our names & addresses, that Gates could type in our code, and turn on our mic on our PC, and listen/see what we were doing right now... or another one to paralyze all win PCs (watch your heads, there comes the ISS!)... its like 1984, and Lex Luthor all rolled into one...
Maybe I am being paranoid... but somehow I dont think so... it is all starting to get scary.. all this PC internet technology snooping, selling, probing, backdooring, rolled in with corporate greed and political bribes and back room deals..
Opinions anyone? Does this merit its own slashdot topic, as I am surprised it hasn't been discussed yet...