back to article Do you use .home and .mail on your network? ICANN mulls .corp, .mail, .home dot-word domains

For five years, more than a dozen companies have been waiting to hear whether they will be able to run the generic top-level domains .corp, .home and .mail. And this month they finally got their answer: we're still thinking about it. In a letter sent by the head of the domains division of DNS overseer ICANN to the 15 companies …

  1. alain williams Silver badge

    .local

    Well, at least they have not proposed a TLD of .local -- yet.

    1. Justicesays
      Linux

      Re: .local

      I was looking for .localdomain myself.

    2. bombastic bob Silver badge
      WTF?

      Re: .local

      "Well, at least they have not proposed a TLD of .local -- yet."

      I use that one internally for network DNS (along with a zillion others, most likely). Isn't there an RFC for that?

      RFC2965 mentions it (along with a caveat, somewhat), Other RFCs also mention '.localhost'. But then again you never know, do ya? I'd hate to have to purchase a domain just to have DNS running on a LAN [yet ANOTHER tollbooth on the intarwebs].

      might have to CREATE an RFC to protect it, now...

      subsequent edit - found THIS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.local

      1. Eddy Ito

        Re: .local

        Interesting. I've been using .lan since OS/2 went 32 bit. Maybe when the next box dies it'll be time to migrate to .local since there's no RFC for .lan and I'm not convinced the asshats at ICANN won't assign it to something, perhaps largely all networks.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: .local

          Same here - it's time ICANN explicitly reserves domain names for local networks - and .lan would fit very nicely, far better than .local which anyway was reserved to be used with mDNS, and looks a bit out of place for large networks. But you're right to believe that a three letter TLD is probably very valuable and given how ICANN work they will try to sell it.

          1. Bronek Kozicki

            Re: .local

            For local network, I use my ".lan" subdomain of my actual publicly registered domain. Only my local DNS servers know how to resolve this subdomain, which is exactly how I want it. Perhaps more robust solution would be to resolve this ".lan" sub-domain in a publicly available zone file of my main domain, to a firewall-protected DNS with a public IP, but that's too much faffing around for me.

    3. rh587

      Re: .local

      Well, at least they have not proposed a TLD of .local -- yet.

      Give it time... this is ICANN after all.

      1. BillG
        Thumb Down

        .corp, .home and .mail etc.

        As for the 15 companies waiting to hear what will happen to .corp, .home and .mail

        Great. More TLDs for spammers.

    4. Sven Coenye

      Re: .local

      Apple already usurped that one for Bonjour without looking back (or forward.) It's been the gift that keeps on giving for over a decade.

      1. Daniel Voyce

        Re: .local

        Yep and if you use it for local development and have a mac on your network it takes upwards of 30 seconds for whatever magic packets that get routed that way to get rejected so the rest of the request can continue! Learnt that the hard way!

    5. Crazy Operations Guy

      Re: .local

      I've always just registered .net along with my domains and use .net for all my internal operations (Its why its there, after all). I avoid using .local or anything like that because OS X craps the bed when trying to authenticate against an Active Directory with a .local domain, or any other non-existent TLD. OR at least that is what I saw back in 2012 when I worked for a company that had OS-X based machines.

      .net domains are like $5 a year, with most registrars offering discounts for multi year or buying the .net along with other domain names, there is no excuse for not just buying a real domain name. In external DNS, I just use an @ CNAME to point everything from .net to .com, and is otherwise empty; all the real .net DNS zone info is on the internal DNS servers.

  2. kain preacher

    .home is used by routers. Not all but enough that it will screw with ISP.

    1. MacroRodent

      .home alone

      > .home is used by routers. Not all but enough that it will screw with ISP.

      Yes, I recently found out by accident my home router is doing this on its own for my HP multi-function printer, which I guess it auto-discovers (pnp? Bonjour?). Both devices came with so skimpy documentation (as is the fashion today) that I am still discovering fun things about them... I just cannot understand why it was mentioned nowhere that the printer has a useful web interface that can be used to change settings, or even use the scanner, without bothering with HP's bundled programs, or the printers built-in panel.

  3. Mike Shepherd
    Meh

    "Ad nauseum (sic)"

    Is this a joke that I don't understand or does the author just have very poor Latin?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Ad nauseum (sic)"

      I would suspect the author like almost all of the rest of the country is not literate in Latin at all, especially as it is fairly pointless and is only required so you can show that money was spent on a private education, rather than bundled in with the masses who prefer to spend their time learning maths, physics and chemistry.

      Therefore the few latin terms that have made it into modern parlance may end up being spelt wrongly, like any other word, but also as they often get spelt phonetically - in this case like museum - rather than the extension of nausea.

      It is also one term that is spelt wrongly almost as much as it is spelt correctly even with respected journals (and disrespected ones like The Register).

    2. goodjudge

      Re: "Ad nauseum (sic)"

      Mr Shepherd, I presume you're not a Private Eye reader. They frequently use "passim, ad nauseum" as a humorous way of pointing out that they've written about a particular scandal / dodgy practice / act of crime in multiple previous issues. I.e. "we're sick of writing about this". Generally it's because no action has been taken (or is likely to be) to change the process / close the loophole / investigate the crime. ICANN's incompetent handling of the "new domain extension" process has been covered many times before in El Reg...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "Ad nauseum (sic)"

        No Private Eye frequently uses "ad nauseam", which was the pedant's point.

        1. Swarthy
          Coat

          Re: "Ad nauseum (sic)"

          "Ad nauseum" makes me (sic)

  4. Ole Juul

    Alternate DNS roots

    Anybody can set up DNS servers, and they do. ICANN's arrogance is going to work against them as time goes by and the already growing alts are just going to gain momentum.

    1. Arthur the cat Silver badge

      Re: Alternate DNS roots

      Anybody can set up DNS servers, and they do. ICANN's arrogance is going to work against them as time goes by and the already growing alts are just going to gain momentum.

      True, but

      a) alternate roots risk partitioning the net. Ideal if you're a control freak dictator who wants to isolate his country, or alt-reality fans (working on a smaller scale), not ideal if you believe widespread communication is good.

      b) ICANN is still the 800 lb gorilla in the room. You get a .narnia domain from an alt, but only a small number of people can see you. ICANN then announces a .narnia domain, you're stomped and hosed. Maybe a handful of diehards stay with the alt and can see you, but even less of the world can see you than before. At which point you've just put yourself squarely into category a, even if you weren't there in the first place

    2. Crazy Operations Guy

      Re: Alternate DNS roots

      I've built my own DNS boxes specifically for that purpose. The server runs a script that pulls https://www.internic.net/domain/root.zone, compares it with the previous version and adds the changes to my stripped-down DNS zone to serve up. I have yet to see anything worth a damn on any of these new TLDs and did it to avoid all the malware and pointless bullshit that infests domains in those TLDs. My users complain that they can't access anything under .buzz, but those sites are already against the AUP anyway, so no loss there.

      I've found that nothing useful uses anything other than the generics (.com, .net, .org, .edu, etc) or a ccTLD (.uk, .de, .sv, etc).

      Nearly all the new TLDs are owned by companies trying to protect their IP, or domain squatters (With have of those being owned by a single troll based in Bellevue, WA)

  5. Your alien overlord - fear me

    The way they run their business, the head of the European Patent Office (Benoit Battistelli) will fit right in when he gets finally kicked out of office.

  6. -tim
    Devil

    They won't work on my networks

    I for one will be delegating .mail and .home on my servers to my own servers. I've done that to a bunch of scummy TLDs so far. I'm thinking I should just delegate the country code and old top levels and remove all the rest. Another advantage is many of the spammy TLDs automatically get rejected without bothering a DNS blacklist. Anyone want do a patch for bind to allow delegating ??. so I can easily take care of the CC-TLDs?

    1. Arthur the cat Silver badge

      Re: They won't work on my networks

      Anyone want do a patch for bind to allow delegating ??. so I can easily take care of the CC-TLDs?

      I think you're mad wanting to do that, but each to their own. Try taking a look at Unbound, particularly the local-zone and local-data directives. It's a lot easier to run than bind as well in my experience.

  7. PowerSurge

    wrong way to go

    These TLDs add very little. They're mostly redundant categorisations. What they should do is choose common word endings. E.g .ing .all .any .der and so on. Allows a bit of creativity. We.do.paint.ing Uno.fk.all or whatever. Over to you...

    1. Phil W

      Re: wrong way to go

      "These TLDs add very little."

      That's the key isn't it really. From a technical and operational stand point the decision should be simple, if introducing a particular TLD has a higher than normal potential to cause problems because a variety of people have been using it internally for years then it shouldn't be introduced, end of story. There is no technical benefit to any of these particular TLDs.

      The only argument for ignoring this risk is profit, be that from domain registrars who want to sell domains on that TLD or corporations who want fancy looking URLs. This is not a sufficient argument when there is an almost infinite number of other options available for new TLDs that wouldn't pose this risk.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: wrong way to go

      "These TLDs add very little."

      I disagree, they are really useful for spammers.

      Of course for eveyone else but ICANN & the afformentioned nefarious outfits, they're utter shite.

  8. Unep Eurobats
    Coat

    Completely.e

    Dot you see what I did there?

    1. edge_e
      Facepalm

      Re: Completely.e

      been there, done that

  9. imanidiot Silver badge
    Facepalm

    over 4 million pounds in..

    Even if they stand to make 100 pounds per domain, that's still 40k domains that need to sell just to recoup costs so far. Are there actually enough suckerscustomers in this world looking for a .mail or .home adress?

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: over 4 million pounds in..

      "Are there actually enough suckerscustomers in this world looking for a .mail or .home adress?"

      I'm not sure I can even see a point to .mail anyway. most mail related stuff is usually mail.domain.tld, pop3.domian.tld, smtp.domain.tld or imap.domain.tld.

      I'm not sure what use pop3.yahoo.mail, for example, would add.

  10. John Sager

    Silly to use generic tlds on a home network

    I picked one that's not generic and not in ISO3166 so that it wouldn't cause me or anyone else any problems in the future. I also got the local root name in the company NNTP server changed many years ago to avoid ISO3166 before it would have become a problem. Far better to foresee these problems before they bite you...

    1. Arthur the cat Silver badge

      Re: Silly to use generic tlds on a home network

      I picked one that's not generic and not in ISO3166

      That's an approach I've found useful over the years. Potentially any TLD with 3 or more characters could become a gTLD in the future, but among the 2 letter ccTLDs AA, QM-QZ and XA-XZ are reserved for end users. And if you really want to save keystrokes, the 26 single letters are not used as TLDs and probably never will be.

      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: Silly to use generic tlds on a home network

        "And if you really want to save keystrokes, the 26 single letters are not used as TLDs and probably never will be."

        I thought they were the North Korean internet?

  11. Hans 1
    Holmes

    Sysadmins often use these names within their corporate networks and so the risk of adding them to the public DNS was something ICANN decided needed to be looked into.

    Is the money worth pissing off 30% of the world's sysadmins ?

    We need generic TLD's like lan, web, home, local, corp, mail for internal networks, so don't piss us off! No need to ask experts, stay clear of these, thanks! We already have enough silly TLD's as it is ... biz, anyone ? AND you already f'd up org and net, thanks, but, no thanks

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      "Is the money worth pissing off 30% of the world's sysadmins ?"

      "Is the money worth having 30% of the world's corporate pc's refusing to connect to your domain?

      TFTFY

  12. Mage Silver badge

    ICANN

    They are more interested in money than sensible oversight.

    Countries, org gov edu com net info biz is plenty. More just makes scamming easier and it's a way to raise revenue from big companies.

    A pity though that some are really just extra USA domains. Possibly .gov should not have existed as a TLD.

  13. J. R. Hartley

    This is the biggest load of ballix I've ever heard. Between IPv6 and dot everything, the internet is becoming frankly a bit silly.

  14. Herby

    Things like 'lan' for names...

    In a company I worked for (was a two letter company, but is now three letters), some of the examples were specified as "private.lan.com" which is all nice until you realize that the state airline of Chile is (wait for it) LAN airlines, and they own "lan.com". I attempted to point this out, but to no avail.

    Oh, well!

    In the end, I suspect that ANY suitable name, or letter combination will be used somewhere. I long for the days when ".org" was non-profits, ".net" wasn't a Microsoft thing but someone who ran a big interconnecting network, and ".com" were ACTUAL commercial businesses (and registration was "free"). Days long gone by (*SIGH*).

  15. xj25vm

    Reserved TLD's

    I never, ever understood why they haven't reserved a bunch of TLD's for private networks only. Just as a bunch of IP address ranges are reserved for private networks only. Then everybody would know where things stand, what domains can be used for internal DNS and so forth. All this messing about and wrecking havoc with internal networks DNS when new TLD's get registered or Apple decides they are the only ones who matter.

  16. KJ4IPS

    der .haus

    While you may not be able to get .home, you can currently get .haus, which is great if you have a german, or german-sounding last name.

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