Its all about "getting more money" anyway. Capitalism issue. Things always get corrupted into that. Not that any other system we have had so far was better.
ICANN is wrong
41–50 of 94 posts
Re: ICANN is wrong
#42If it's a company's trademark, fine -- let them buy the corresponding TLD. No harm done. Bzzzt, wrong. Trademarks are industry-specific: that's why Apple Records can exist alongside Apple Computer. If there's no likelihood of confusion, there's no conflict. And of course, trademarks are not fully international. Winer is right about ICANN being wrong. There's just so much else that ICANN is wrong about.
"Not so sure about Amazon buying .amazon, because it also is the name of a rainforest in South America, and .apple could be a problem for growers and lovers of the fruit." Seems like I covered the Apple case.
But you did not cover the critical issue; you have not distinguished between www.sex and www.sex.com:
"the problem. And it extends to words and concepts that weren't created by anyone living today. Sex, love, laughter, babies, books, songs, cars, poetry, etc. These things shouldn't be TLDs, they're too important, too basic to life. Not the kinds of things any company, for crying out loud, should be able to claim to own."
Why is it such a tragedy if poetry is a TLD but poetry.com is no problem? Why is unthinkable that a company could own .poetry but no problem if the same company owns poetry.com?
Re: ICANN is wrong
#43I've said it on the previous Dave Winer's article about it. I really don't get what's the big deal as long as the all the previous TLDs continue to exist and operate just like they have been operating.
Some enterprises will have the new fancy TLDs, good for them. The rest of us will have to keep going as we have been going (we might even get access some of the new TLDs.) I really doubt that, for example, having my.book will be a significant competitive advantage versus having mybook.com
What am I missing? (Yes, greedy ICANN is evil, but what else?)
Re: ICANN is wrong
#44My original thought when hearing about the prospect of new gTLDs was that a central body would look to claim a descriptive term such as 'blog' and make it available to anyone who wanted to host a blog under set criteria, and provided that centralised body committed to providing access to anyone under reasonable terms. This would act as a guarantee of origin of the site and would be helpful to consumers. I don't there…
It's worse than that; Google said that if they get .blog it will only be available to Blogger users.
Re: ICANN is wrong
#45Isn't the real issue here that it's just unnatural to use fixed combinations of letters to refer to websites? There is a reason that natural language is so hard to process for computers: It's inherently context-dependent and never has meaning per se. The domain name system on the other hand tries to impose a fixed naming system on us that is absolutely incomprehensible to anyone without technical knowledge.
The only solution to this mess I can see is a non-profit HTTPS server certificate verification authority in combination with a complete revamp of the user experience for browsing web ressources. I should be able to just search for the page I want to visit instead of having to remember its exact name.
Re: ICANN is wrong
#46The internet can be made a much better & safer place if the new registries enforce proper regulations. Of course, there will be exceptions but there are many major players in this race who will work towards this objective. If you look at it in another way, it opens up a whole new world of opportunities not just for ICANN or the registry but for us, developers! Lets say I made a super awesome Iphone App and want a website for it, how much is the probability of me finding a relevant .com domain name for it? On the other hand, I have higher chances of getting a very relevant name with a .app extension & if this extension is popular amongst app users (which the .app registry would definitely ensure) then I have just multiplied chances of my app being discovered easily! Now some would argue that apps are to be found in app markets but then this was just a simple example, the possibilities are endless. I believe we are in a historic moment of the evolution of internet, something which would make the internet better, easier & safer for all of us.
Re: ICANN is wrong
#47Each reason the author gives against the new TLDs also applies to domain names. For example, he writes: "Not so sure about Amazon buying .amazon, because it also is the name of a rainforest in South America, and .apple could be a problem for growers and lovers of the fruit." But the same reasoning applies for domain names: "Not so sure about Amazon buying amazon.com, because it also is the name of a rainforest in Sou…
I think part of the point is that its not clear what value these new TLDs add. Google already owns google.com. By creating the possibility of ".google," you aren't doing much else other than forcing them to own it defensively. There isn't really a benefit to mail.google over mail.google.com.
In other words, in a large sense you are right -- all these issues exist for the TLDs we have today, and they've already been hashed out. Why create another round of 90's style litigation around who bought .coke first or bless a new set of owners with "high quality" tld's like .food? This isn't going to realistically expand the "number" of domains available, its only going to force companies to defensively buy even more permutations of theirname.___, and for all the domains that are already taken in ___.com form, it will only add confusion by having a parallel .___ version.
Re: ICANN is wrong
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the vector itself is an issue; but I don't think this will make it significantly worse. For any domain, there's already hundreds or thousands of possible similar domains across the existing TLDs - adding a few more TLDs won't make much of a difference. I also doubt that the future owner of .shoes - whoever that may be - will be stupid enough to devalue his own TLD by selling second-level domains like candy. T…
True, there are tons of similar TLD's out there already. But this ins't a "few more TLDs". This is ~2,000 new TLD's. Indeed, 'shoes' was a bad example. But many of these new TLD's have been applied for by entities who plan on sub-letting the TLD to others.
This is ~2,000 new TLD's.
No, this is ~2000 TLD applications. We have no idea how many of those will ICANN approve.
But many of these new TLD's have been applied for by entities who plan on sub-letting the TLD to others.
My point wasn't that they won't sell domains, but that many or most won't sell them to any random shmoe like .com/.net/etc are sold, but only to businesses in the fields and how are willing to pay a lot more for the privilege, which doesn't describe scammers.
Re: ICANN is wrong
#49[deleted]
Re: ICANN is wrong
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
True, there are tons of similar TLD's out there already. But this ins't a "few more TLDs". This is ~2,000 new TLD's. Indeed, 'shoes' was a bad example. But many of these new TLD's have been applied for by entities who plan on sub-letting the TLD to others.
This is ~2,000 new TLD's. No, this is ~2000 TLD applications . We have no idea how many of those will ICANN approve. But many of these new TLD's have been applied for by entities who plan on sub-letting the TLD to others. My point wasn't that they won't sell domains, but that many or most won't sell them to any random shmoe like .com/.net/etc are sold, but only to businesses in the fields and how are willing to pay a…
Fair point about the approval.
>but only to businesses in the fields and how are willing to pay a lot more for the privilege
Here's to hoping you're right.
Though, I doubt anybody would be surprised to find the bar vastly lower than you expect--especially when it comes time for these purchasers to recover some of the cost and find these fields are smaller than anticipated.