Security bug stalls new dot-word TLD land grab AGAIN Domain name overlord ICANN has been forced to delay its new top-level domain (TLD) expansion by another week as its techies attempt to analyse the fallout of an embarrassing security vulnerability. Its TLD Application System (TAS), which companies worldwide have been using since January to confidentially apply for gTLDs such …
Why has nobody in tech press or (more importantly), the standards bodies etc, not addressed the issue of the new TLDs flattening the DNS hierarchy?
If you take this to its logical conclusion, we will have million of TLDs, thus rendering the current hierarchical nature of the DNS naming convention rather redundant. How is the DNS system going to cope with this? Has anyone analysed it?
of course not. nobody would ever bother to do any sort of analysis on core internet infrastructure before making changes to it.
but don't take my word for it. read this: http://www.icann.org/en/committees/dns-root/root-scaling-study-report-31aug09-en.pdf
we will not have "millions of TLDs". the new tld craporama might add 500-1500. almost all of these will fail, some very shortly after they launch when they get no takers.
look at how few of the tlds icann created so far have actually been sucessful: 3 or 4 out of 14-15. that failure rate is bound to go up because world + dog will be fed up with umpteen .com wannabees that nobody can be bothered to buy. so once that new tld bubble bursts and the .whatevers go tits-up, common sense will eventually prevail and there will be no more talk of new tlds.
only those with more money than sense "invest" in a tld. what we're seeing at the moment is a small-scale version of the internet/.com silliness from around 2000 or theresabouts. lots of mugs are going to lose a fortune. a lucky few will make millions selling their tld to a vc firm or private equity house hoping to jump aboard the next big thing bandwagon.
I find it very interesting that, on the first occasion where ICANN is actually trying to demonstrate some proper seriousness about a serious issue, some TLD applicants appear to give very little flying monkeys about the whole thing and just want their new shiny to be available ASAP.
Undoubtedly, Van Gelder will be the first to squeal like mad if his .whatdoicare is undercut by a .couldicareless, and will then hold ICANN responsible for the situation, demanding reparation and truckloads of cash.
But for now, let's just revel in the fact that, for once, ICANN is actually trying to be professional about something, and with full disclosure no less.
About bloody time, too.
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