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ICANN is wrong

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Re: ICANN is wrong

#61

Post by febeling »

The current default is that a company can own its name under all important TLDs. That is feasible because there are only so many generic ones (.com,.net,.org, maybe .info and .name) and a few of countries you want to do business with. So you could cultivate the expectation that you need and once will have your brand name (in its variations) under all of these.

That will no longer be possible. Also, it will not possible to just assume that the TLD is the new domain name, with every middle-sized company snatching up their brand name as TLD.

So when that expectation is no longer there, there will be no problems at all. Some of these TLDs will work similar to the existing generic TLDs, with the possibility for third parties to buy regular domains. Others will operate more like private tropical islands, used as some kind of status symbol.

The whole thing has one likely positive consequence, though. It might weaken the idea that you could somehow own a name or word. Some arbitrary slightly deep-pocketed entity grabs a name that most legitimately interested people cannot afford. That happens often enough, and nobody gives much about that name plaque any longer. Plus, old-fashioned brand operators will have a tough time buying up all "their" domains under the newly formed TLDs until they eventually give up and realize they cannot control "their" name in every conceivable abstract namespace. Everyone wins.

Re: ICANN is wrong

#62

Post by tolmasky »

icebraining wrote: post #58
tolmasky wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

You are not forcing them to own it defensively. For $2k - less than pocket money for Google - they can register their trademark with the ICANN which prevents others from applying for it.

The explanation you gave still requires paying money, again, as a purely defensive move. Fine, you don't care about Google since it has so much "pocket money" laying around. How about startups that can't afford to throw 2K around every time ICANN decides to add TLDs?

Re: ICANN is wrong

#63

Post by dfc »

davewiner wrote: post #53
dfc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Okay I'll cover it here (although I did elsewhere in this thread). Maybe those domains shouldn't have been issued, but they were. And that's why you want to deal with these things before you get an installed base, not after.

You did not cover it...What is the harm of having a .poetry TLD? Or what are the personal+societal costs of the private/exclusive registration of poetry.com?

But you are right we should deal with these things before there is a large user base. So let's sort it out now and come up with a solid framework for what alphanumeric strings are acceptable. What are the rules? Which alpha-numeric strings are too important to let a company own?

My name is Doug, can I register .doogie? Can I register .poetree? Is .oybt acceptable, even if it is rot13(blog)?

Re: ICANN is wrong

#64

Post by quesera »

Kerrick wrote: post #52
snowwrestler wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And these will continue to exist even if Amazon.com the company secures .amazon the TLD. I think Dave's mistake is that he believes that TLDs represent anything canonical. Originally they were meant to, but only a few do anymore[1]. In almost every case, they're just a few extra characters at the end. [1]gov and mil edit: formatting

Also, .edu and a couple ccTLDs. Basically, any TLD that has a rigid filtering process for obtaining one actually means something.

There are a few absolute and total lies buried in .edu, and have been for decades.

I hesitate to mention the domain names, because I appreciate the humor in them.

Also because they were approved by John Postel himself, and he was a good guy.

Re: ICANN is wrong

#65

Post by pyre »

tolmasky wrote: post #62
icebraining wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not forcing them to own it defensively. For $2k - less than pocket money for Google - they can register their trademark with the ICANN which prevents others from applying for it.

The explanation you gave still requires paying money, again, as a purely defensive move. Fine, you don't care about Google since it has so much "pocket money" laying around. How about startups that can't afford to throw 2K around every time ICANN decides to add TLDs?

"every time ICANN decides to add TLDs"? There are Top-Level Domains. You can't go any higher without knocking everything else down a level. ICANN has already decided that the top-level namespace is up for grabs, and the $2K fee is a one-time payment to protect your mark. Am I missing something? How can they "decide to add TLDs again?"

Re: ICANN is wrong

#66

Post by brownbat »

Funny, I've heard all these same complaints about second-level domains.

It's a human-readable addressing scheme. At some point, words will be used. The more memorable, the more usable. All those words that were "too important" to be used as TLDs should be allowed as TLDs precisely because they are important.

TLDs should be open to any string of characters, unicode if possible, and registrars should have universal single price registration fees for any site on any domain.

If in that nightmare world .llama should be bought by a fad in comfortable footwear, depriving some Llama rancher's association of their god-given rights to address space, we will just have to hope Mother Earth will somehow learn to heal.

Instead of imagining future conflicts, we should look at TLD behavior right now. Look at the rise of super short TLDs flooding profits to random countries. It might make you realize that appending the meaningless ".com" at the end of everything is a giant waste of time, since people will pay so handsomely to avoid this, all proceeds to random lottery winners like Tuvalu. (Nothing against Tuvalu, who undoubtedly needs the money for boats to leave their poor drowning island.)

If you look into what consumers want, instead of the complaints of a few random interest groups, it'd be clear we should somehow be able to go to "google" instead of "google.com" or "wiki" instead of "wikipedia.org" or "bit" instead of "bit.ly." Chinese users should be able to spell Baidu in their natural language, without resorting to a half-assed toneless Westernization.

ICANN's biggest mistake is not going far enough. They should chuck the whole TLD system and start from scratch, driven by the revealed preferences of those who actually browse the internet.

Re: ICANN is wrong

#67

Post by quesera »

davewiner wrote: post #56
naturalethic wrote: post #33

Why are TLD's needed at all? Why can't I just name my host any arbitrary set of characters?

This is by far the most interesting comment in this thread. I think it's a fair question. Maybe at one point there was a need to have different namespaces, but what need there is now for it, hard to say.

I would like to read a proposal for arbitrary names in a federated, peer to peer, global, and consistent naming system.

For anything really, but let's start with domain names, since we're on the topic.

Re: ICANN is wrong

#68

Post by duskwuff »

larrys wrote: post #24
duskwuff wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For normal domains, there's at least a well-defined process for registering, transferring, and disputing ownership. There's no equivalent for top-level domains, and changing the ownership of a TLD would be likely to cause disruption on a much wider scale than for a normally registered domain.

"There's no equivalent for top-level domains" There is. It's the process that's happening right now. Applying for a tld doesn't guarantee getting the tld. Now is the time to object. Paying $185,000+ doesn't guarantee getting the tld. Lastly the intellectual property constituency had a big role in all the rules and discussions of this which has been going on for many years now.

Unfortunately, the objection process is thoroughly stupid. If I recall correctly, there's a fee of several thousand dollars to file an objection to an application!

Re: ICANN is wrong

#69

Post by pyre »

davewiner wrote: post #56
naturalethic wrote: post #33

Why are TLD's needed at all? Why can't I just name my host any arbitrary set of characters?

This is by far the most interesting comment in this thread. I think it's a fair question. Maybe at one point there was a need to have different namespaces, but what need there is now for it, hard to say.

Of the top of my head:

* Domains + sub-domains allows for wildcard SSL cert registrations (e.g. a cert that covers .example.com).

There's also cookie registration.

* How do I differentiate between my_blog_host, my_blog_host_2 and really.my_blog_host? Are they all owned by the same person? Is really.my_blog_host associated with my_blog_host?

Re: ICANN is wrong

#70

Post by Karunamon »

CPops wrote: post #38

I don't know how the internet could easily transition out of this mess, but I think it would probably be good to eventually get rid of as many TLDs other than .com as possible. Does it add any real value to users to have to try and remember and differentiate between .com, .org, .net, .info, .me, .ly, .tv, all the others I'm forgetting about, and now .shoes and .pants and whatever else companies come up with? It just…

Problem with that (aside from the lack of capitalistic motive) would be management (IIRC, ICANN isn't directly managing the new TLD's, that job goes to the companies who actually end up with them), as well as what happens when someone who illegitimately owns a .com name were to get the associated TLD.
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