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New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

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Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#21
post #18

Maybe Microsoft, Google, Apple and Mozilla could get together, and configure their OSes and browsers to do DNS lookups by default using a system different than ICANN's via security updates. That would make ICANN mostly irrelevant in less than a year. Also, it improves security, since you are already trusting your browser vendor and would no longer need to trust ICANN, registrars and the CA system as well.

Microsoft, Google and Apple were among the first to apply for the new TLDs (though the latter just asked for .apple), so why would they now oppose this scheme?

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#22
post #2

I don't consider this a surprise at all. I see these new ads for things like ".digital" and ".media" and the only thing I can think of is using them for vanity, such as xyzcompany.media and then using that internally. It's a shame that ICANN is polluting the internet like this.

".com" forever? There is no reason we can have better naming systems. Consider ".io". It's often used by startups and signals quite a lot about a domain.

Yes but no but. Originally tlds had meaning but slowly became watered down for general purpose use.

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#23
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To know that abc.media is a media company while abc.auto is a car company would be good for the user. It makes them less likely to click the wrong link. Really, more TLDs should just provide a finer grain of information to the previous '.com is a company and .org is an organisation'. There's no 'pollution' if you're only refining an idea. It's not like .com is going away. Plus, what's actually wrong with vanity as fa…

host/domain name is way to overabused, people should be using info resouce to find the site they are looking for. This way chrome stepped in the right direction moving people away from domains. There can be other software/internet constructs to navigate to right result, domain names are just vanity plates. It helps it if it easier to type the domain up but only for maybe top 10 sites that you use. Those sites are alr…

[deleted]

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#24
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To know that abc.media is a media company while abc.auto is a car company would be good for the user. It makes them less likely to click the wrong link. Really, more TLDs should just provide a finer grain of information to the previous '.com is a company and .org is an organisation'. There's no 'pollution' if you're only refining an idea. It's not like .com is going away. Plus, what's actually wrong with vanity as fa…

host/domain name is way to overabused, people should be using info resouce to find the site they are looking for. This way chrome stepped in the right direction moving people away from domains. There can be other software/internet constructs to navigate to right result, domain names are just vanity plates. It helps it if it easier to type the domain up but only for maybe top 10 sites that you use. Those sites are alr…

what i have been noticing my redirect to search on unknown domain names has been failing more and more, cause is that there are too many domains other so if I type "domain names dog", browser can't send me to google anymore to find if there are domain names .dog, I just get host not found error.

Domains can't have spaces, so if you type as such, you'll still get a search in any browser (that has search-in-URL-bar enabled, of course).

What kind of realistic search query without spaces and ending in ".dog" do you see yourself doing?

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#25
post #19

This is not surprising but I fail to see the downside. The internet is complex already. The new top level domains won't add much to that. I think that there was no end-user demand whatsoever for more so-called DNS extensions, [or] global generic top-level domains (gTLDs)," he said. I run a lot of websites and it was a pain to find good domain names in the last 15 years. With all the new TLDs that problem is completel…

Yeah a bit of pain, but at least you prevent some confusions, like "is it fr.microsoft or microsoft.software?" What if it happens that your company name is registered for another TLD and people start seeing it as a legit instance of your service? What if you're a bank and somebody gets a TLD like "yourbank.bank" with valid SSL and starts fishing people from yourbank.com?

What if it happens that your company name is registered for another TLD and people start seeing it as a legit instance of your service?

What happens now? It's not like there's a single domain already - there are dozens, if not hundreds of TLDs.

The realistic answer is: the new TLDs don't matter, even just with .com, it's easy to get a similar enough domain that many people will fall for.

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#26
post #18

Maybe Microsoft, Google, Apple and Mozilla could get together, and configure their OSes and browsers to do DNS lookups by default using a system different than ICANN's via security updates. That would make ICANN mostly irrelevant in less than a year. Also, it improves security, since you are already trusting your browser vendor and would no longer need to trust ICANN, registrars and the CA system as well.

Microsoft, Google and Apple were among the first to apply for the new TLDs (though the latter just asked for .apple), so why would they now oppose this scheme?

I'm not sure that such a thing means they support the change, it's just the rational thing to do given the change happening.

As for why they would setup an alternate DNS system, they would get power over the DNS system and the money from domain registrations.

In exchange, users would get more security and website owners lower prices and more friendly policies (now the reputation of those companies is on the line, and they care more about it than ICANN since they are selling other things).

There's some anonymity risk though which might lead to strong opposition to the project if not addressed and while bundling and using Tor would work, it's not clear if Tor could take a few billion extra users doing tunneled DNS queries.

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#27
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

".com" forever? There is no reason we can have better naming systems. Consider ".io". It's often used by startups and signals quite a lot about a domain.

Yes but no but. Originally tlds had meaning but slowly became watered down for general purpose use.

What is a "domain"? Its a name attached to some organization and an entry in a database. The problem is you have middle-men controlling that database, which means its structure can't change.

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#28
post #3

I understand that the current situation is a bit of a money grab, but what is the rational for TLDs not being arbitrary in the first place? Isn't it all just letters anyways?

I am old enough to remember when .com .net and .org really did mean what they said. Now only .edu and .mil do.

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#29

This is not surprising but I fail to see the downside. The internet is complex already. The new top level domains won't add much to that. I think that there was no end-user demand whatsoever for more so-called DNS extensions, [or] global generic top-level domains (gTLDs)," he said. I run a lot of websites and it was a pain to find good domain names in the last 15 years. With all the new TLDs that problem is completel…

It is a shakedown. Companies already have to buy their trademark domains on multiple TLD just to avoid litigating them constantly. Now they will have to buy them on hundreds of TLD. Doesn't it mean anything that registrars were the only people asking for this?

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#30
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah a bit of pain, but at least you prevent some confusions, like "is it fr.microsoft or microsoft.software?" What if it happens that your company name is registered for another TLD and people start seeing it as a legit instance of your service? What if you're a bank and somebody gets a TLD like "yourbank.bank" with valid SSL and starts fishing people from yourbank.com?

What if it happens that your company name is registered for another TLD and people start seeing it as a legit instance of your service? What happens now? It's not like there's a single domain already - there are dozens, if not hundreds of TLDs. The realistic answer is: the new TLDs don't matter, even just with .com, it's easy to get a similar enough domain that many people will fall for.

I remember the good old steamcornmutiny.
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