Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stop Corporate Takeover of New Internet Names

change.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 85 posts

Re: Stop Corporate Takeover of New Internet Names

#51

Post by unclebucknasty »

larrys wrote: post #40
unclebucknasty wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding, there also was/is a loophole that allowed squatters to hold on to a name without cost for a period. Once it rolled off, they were able to grab it again at no cost. Don't recall all of the details or whether the loophole was closed, but at one time it powered a lot of the squatting activity.

You are talking about "domain tasting". It was closed because it wasn't good for the registry operators (once again Verisign in the case of .com and .net). That said there is a cost. A registrar needs to keep money on deposit with the registries for the domains that they have purchased. So if they have a constant 1000 domains being registered and dropped and registered it will cost them money. They will make that mon…

Actually, what I was referring to is known as "domain kiting":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting#Domain_kiting

"Domain tasting should not be confused with domain kiting, which is the process of deleting a domain name during the five-day grace period and immediately re-registering it for another five-day period. This process is repeated any number of times with the end result of having the domain registered without having to pay for it."

Apparently, there was no cost to the squatters.

Re: Stop Corporate Takeover of New Internet Names

#52

Post by rogueriver »

I'm still trying to figure out why ICANN charges what it does for just registering a domain name. Yes--close to $7.00 a year is too much for what they actually do.

If you have a problem with your domain name, and try to go up against Corporate Lawyers--you're in for a loosing, expensive battle.

That $7.00 times millions equalls a lot of money, but they won't, actively, defend your rights with competent lawyers.

The whole name game has irritated anyone involved with website design, at least in my world.

In the end, the poor and middle class webmasters need to stick together, and fight Corporate Abuse of Power.

Re: Stop Corporate Takeover of New Internet Names

#53

Post by rehashed »

rehashed wrote: post #9

What benefit do these new TLDs bring to the table? If ICANN need additional revenue, why not fractionally increase the cost of the current gTLDs instead of introducing more? All these new domains can possibly achieve, IMHO, is to confuse the consumer and allow corporations to control access to 'desirable' gTLDs. If the domain space is so overcrowded, then by all means introduce a new gTLD - but keep it ICANN controll…

UPDATE3: The more I think about this, the more concerned I become. These new gTLDs, given the proliferation of combined search and location bars in modern browsers are tantamount to a direct keyword to those corporations with $185k to spend. Type in 'antivirus', and you will be directed to symantec - not the search results you would likely expect. This has to stop - NOW.

Re: Stop Corporate Takeover of New Internet Names

#54

Post by jurassic »

gesman wrote: post #35

Attempt number 1000 to generate crowd's excitement over long, worthless and often confusing domain extensions. Instead of adding really useful and short two-letter extensions, such as .js and others.

I completely agree. I'd love it if there was a broader selection of "anagramable" 2 letter extensions that aren't encumbered with geopolitical associations (e.g. ly=Libya, ir=Iran, etc.) I have zero interest in .long_noun extensions.

Re: Stop Corporate Takeover of New Internet Names

#55

Post by pixl97 »

rehashed wrote: post #53
rehashed wrote: post #9

What benefit do these new TLDs bring to the table? If ICANN need additional revenue, why not fractionally increase the cost of the current gTLDs instead of introducing more? All these new domains can possibly achieve, IMHO, is to confuse the consumer and allow corporations to control access to 'desirable' gTLDs. If the domain space is so overcrowded, then by all means introduce a new gTLD - but keep it ICANN controll…

UPDATE3: The more I think about this, the more concerned I become. These new gTLDs, given the proliferation of combined search and location bars in modern browsers are tantamount to a direct keyword to those corporations with $185k to spend. Type in 'antivirus', and you will be directed to symantec - not the search results you would likely expect. This has to stop - NOW.

Searching from the URL bar has always been a bad idea, too bad Google adopted the practice.

Re: Stop Corporate Takeover of New Internet Names

#56

Post by icebraining »

rehashed wrote: post #53
rehashed wrote: post #9

What benefit do these new TLDs bring to the table? If ICANN need additional revenue, why not fractionally increase the cost of the current gTLDs instead of introducing more? All these new domains can possibly achieve, IMHO, is to confuse the consumer and allow corporations to control access to 'desirable' gTLDs. If the domain space is so overcrowded, then by all means introduce a new gTLD - but keep it ICANN controll…

UPDATE3: The more I think about this, the more concerned I become. These new gTLDs, given the proliferation of combined search and location bars in modern browsers are tantamount to a direct keyword to those corporations with $185k to spend. Type in 'antivirus', and you will be directed to symantec - not the search results you would likely expect. This has to stop - NOW.

That's hardly a reason to stop the new TLDs, you just need a rule that says you can't have A/AAAA records on the new TLDs.

Re: Stop Corporate Takeover of New Internet Names

#57

Post by pifflesnort »

larrys wrote: post #39
ctoth wrote: post #29

Problem: The .com and similar namespaces are crowded. As someone who has been searching this weekend for a domain, the sad fact is that a huge number of domains are simply "Parked free, courtesy of ..." or "Coming soon", or "Under construction", or "This domain is for sale, please contact..." In short, domains are being bought up and not used, and the commons is ruined. Solution: Increase the price of .com and .net a…

"In short, domains are being bought up and not used, and the commons is ruined." How are "the commons" ruined? Domains (as a business) has been going on since domains were available and some people recognized they would have value and bought them up. Call it "squatting" if you want (a derogatory term) which came up back in the day and plays no relation to the traditional use of "squatting" (thank the media for that o…

Squatting is an accurate description for rent-seeking behavior that levies a cost on the internet community at large. Unlike land -- a physical, real resource -- domain names exist at the discretion of ICANN, the bodies responsible running the root name servers, the infrastructure providers that default to those root name servers, and ultimately, the internet community.

In that regard, they're even more of a manufactured monopoly than any other form of 'intellectual property'; they require no investment in of themselves, and exist at the mercy of the voluntary participation of the network at large.

In this regard, they're most similar to IP address allocations, which are now subject to considerable constraint and no longer freely available for abuse, as providing unrestricted IP allocations is damaging to internet health.

Likewise, supporting rent-seeking domain squatter behavior is damaging to those that would make beneficial use of the domain name space.

Re: Stop Corporate Takeover of New Internet Names

#58

Post by rehashed »

icebraining wrote: post #56
rehashed wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPDATE3: The more I think about this, the more concerned I become. These new gTLDs, given the proliferation of combined search and location bars in modern browsers are tantamount to a direct keyword to those corporations with $185k to spend. Type in 'antivirus', and you will be directed to symantec - not the search results you would likely expect. This has to stop - NOW.

That's hardly a reason to stop the new TLDs, you just need a rule that says you can't have A/AAAA records on the new TLDs.

There are many reasons. That is just one of them.

Please see parent and other posts in the thread, comments on the linked article, and discussions in the forums for others.

Re: Stop Corporate Takeover of New Internet Names

#59

Post by pixl97 »

brownbat wrote: post #48

TLDs were originally going to communicate something to the user, they never actually did. Now they represent... how many wasted keystrokes per day? If Berners-Lee agonizes over the second slash after http, then ".com" has to be one of the biggest failures of usability in history. TLDs were designed by folks who guessed most of the internet would be used for governments and non-profits, and commerce would be this toke…

People that don't understand the DNS hierarchy (and history) are doomed to call things failures that were not, and doomed to find new ways to break DNS in the future.

Re: Stop Corporate Takeover of New Internet Names

#60

Post by larrys »

pifflesnort wrote: post #57
larrys wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In short, domains are being bought up and not used, and the commons is ruined." How are "the commons" ruined? Domains (as a business) has been going on since domains were available and some people recognized they would have value and bought them up. Call it "squatting" if you want (a derogatory term) which came up back in the day and plays no relation to the traditional use of "squatting" (thank the media for that o…

Squatting is an accurate description for rent-seeking behavior that levies a cost on the internet community at large. Unlike land -- a physical, real resource -- domain names exist at the discretion of ICANN, the bodies responsible running the root name servers, the infrastructure providers that default to those root name servers, and ultimately, the internet community. In that regard, they're even more of a manufact…

"domain squatter behavior is damaging to those that would make beneficial use of the domain name space."

How would you propose to determine beneficial use of a domain name?

For example let's say the domain "pifflesnort.com" was taken by someone in 2003 who decided to use it periodically to post a list of movies they had watched on TV. Now you come along (in 2013) and you want it to do something more than that (say do some serious writing). But it's taken already. Let's go further and say that it wasn't taken so you grabbed it. Now someone else comes along and wants it for the name of their new foundation.

Where exactly do you draw the line and what constitutes "beneficial" use of the domain? Do you plan to have a body of people deciding that?

(just checked by the way and pifflesnort.com is "parked". Of course that doesn't mean it wasn't used last year and that doesn't mean it isn't used for email (or an ftp server etc.) and that doesn't mean that the owner isn't hard at work on a website but hasn't launched yet either.)

Post reply on HN