Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: ICANN: Pay Now, Maybe Get a New Top-Level Domain Later
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 08:06:12 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: John Levine <johnl () iecc com> Date: November 2, 2009 2:01:43 PM EST To: synthesis.law.and.technology () gmail com Cc: dave () farber net, lauren () vortex com Subject: Re: [IP] ICANN: Pay Now, Maybe Get a New Top-Level Domain Later
I find it hard to disagree with much of Lauren's analysis. But if there is a problem, and if the problem that exists is the reason that Lauren thinks gTLD expansion is not wise, then why not fix the problem?
Ah, you have it backwards. There's no problem to fix. There are two mostly separate issues with new TLDs. One is TLDs for countries in non-ASCII character sets, known as IDNs. They're much less controversial, and ICANN will soon issue at least a few politically expedient ones like .<china> with the name in Chinese which would be equivalent to .CN. This is the only real TLD problem, it was waiting for technical specs and implementation (not from ICANN), but that is now largely done. The controversial issue is domains with random new names, gTLDs. I agree with my old friend Lauren that this is a tempest in a very expensive teapot, because all of the purported reasons that people want new TLDs have been proven false. Back in the 1990s when this all started, search engines were still obscure experiments, and there was a broad feeling that industry specific TLDs would be used as directories. The failure of .MUSEUM and .AERO shows that DNS directories don't work. There are plenty of directories, but they work by web queries, not DNS queries. Another theory was that restricted TLDs could certify registrants as being genuine members of whatever the restricted field was. The failure of .PRO and .TRAVEL shows this doesn't work either. Domain names aren't a credible way to certify anyone. The last is that the DNS needs "competition", which was and is defined as "people switching from .COM to domains that I sell." There is plenty to dislike about the way that ICANN has managed .COM, but the reality there is that Verisign's technical DNS management has always been fine, and the registration fee, while higher than it should be, is still trivial unless you're a domain speculator. Equally important, the rise of search engines makes specific domain names increasingly unimportant. Google's Chrome, for example, has only one box where you type either a URL or search terms, and I would be surprised if half of its users know the difference. (It is my impression that typosquatting remains profitable only because people type search terms by mistake into a browser's address box.) The only "competition" problem to be solved by new gTLDs is that people want to replace Verisign as the toll collector. If they want to waste $185,000 apiece to find out that it's not going to happen, I have no particular opposition to what is in practice a tax on the foolish and greedy, but disregard any claims that it has anything to do with other than money. R's, John ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Current thread:
- ICANN: Pay Now, Maybe Get a New Top-Level Domain Later David Farber (Nov 02)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: ICANN: Pay Now, Maybe Get a New Top-Level Domain Later David Farber (Nov 02)
- ICANN: Pay Now, Maybe Get a New Top-Level Domain Later David Farber (Nov 03)
- Re: ICANN: Pay Now, Maybe Get a New Top-Level Domain Later David Farber (Nov 03)
- Re: ICANN: Pay Now, Maybe Get a New Top-Level Domain Later David Farber (Nov 03)