Governments probe domain land-snatch: many.gTLDs.suck Governments have started to put ICANN's massive top-level domain name expansion under scrutiny, after the revelation of 1,930 applications for new naming suffixes two weeks ago. During sessions here at ICANN's 44th public meeting in Prague, government representatives have raised their eyebrows over several types of application …
I think there was a serious case for adding additional rules to the application process. Namely where the gTLD is a generic term such as .blog or .music then they must allow others to register second level domains via them and must release trademarked names, so if Google get .music then they would be required to let Apple register itunes.music
With something like .patagonia, it's a little less clear. However I don't think it will mean much in the end as I would still be using the .com and .co.uk addresses. It will be funny telling someone to go to google.google or the like though!
I don't see why anyone should be forced to allow another company to use the gTLD it has paid for and wishes to lawfully use.
It would be a bit like saying the owner of .music.com should allow others to subdomain because it was a generic term (in the days before these new gTLDs were thought up)- why?
They could obviously be stopped from registering and using itunes.music themselves due to current trademark laws but they shouldn't have to allow others to use them.
I don't see why anyone should be forced to allow another company to use the gTLD it has paid for and wishes to lawfully use.
Well, that's going to make the expanded domain system unusable.
Consider ".music" - in particular, the hypothetical domain of "radiohead.music". Who should use it? In a just world, it should be used by Thom Yorke and other people in the band. But who else could use "radiohead.music"? Only those companies foolhardy enough to face trademark infringement and domain squatting lawsuits. We see that the value of owning "xyzw.music" is negative if you aren't the actual musical outfit xyzw. And even if you are the music outfit xyzw, it is quite trivial to set up a xyzw.com | .co.uk | .com.au domain anyway. For example Radiohead has radiohead.com for all their fans.
The gTLD system is nonsense, and expensive nonsense as well.
It incredible that ICANN has managed to screw up as much as it has over the years. Well not really but I thought I'd point out the obvious to those who thought this latest endeavour was well conceived, documented, communicated and managed. Well I guess it does boil down to the last bit...managed. Oh right...let the gravy train continue because reality has no bearing on anything ICANN does right?
Pint coz its bloody Friday.
I dunno about you, but I've always felt that .com (and, to a lesser extent, .co.uk) is a vastly more valuable suffix than .whatever, because it implies "website". I certainly cannot see the point of all these dot-verbose vanity domains... "patagonia.com" is not only clearly a website to the vast majority of web users, but its also a fair bit quicker to type in than almost anything at .patagonia is likely to be.
I certainly cannot see the point of all these dot-verbose vanity domains...
I agree that the common TLDs are probably better. In fact they might become more desirable after all the "dot verbose" ones take effect. In fact the long ones might be a liability because, unlike dot com, one can filter them out with a possible worthwhile result.
@Stuart Longland: I just checked, and command.com is taken. However, I'm looking forward to a new .exe TLD.
This is of course entirely unexpected, and nobody could have predicted it. Especially not after the stellar ICANN performance during registration and the rulemaking process preceding it. Turns out treating TLDs like really expensive flatspace causes tribbles in the system. How quaint.
"...to put ICANN's massive top-level domain name expansion under scrutiny..."
Well, bravo, but it's a bit bloody late, isn't it? People were warning about the potential (probable) debacle this would turn into when it was first proposed, but only now the horse is well and truly over the horizon are the Governments thinking of bolting the stable door!
Yeah, I once had a boss who is now probably an advisor for ICANN based on this cock up.
He had me labelled as a trouble maker because I would point out the flaws in his plans so we could eliminate/workaround/plan for when things didn't go to plan. His attitude was "full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes!".
Of course, he didn't have to man the pumps when the silver fish breached the hull.
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