3 ms·

This article makes a few good (but separate) points. 1. Hostnames are backwards. com.ycombinator.news makes much more sense than news.ycombinator.com, because

This article makes a few good (but separate) points. 1. Hostnames are backwards. com.ycombinator.news makes much more sense than news.ycombinator.com, because the rest of a URL goes from least specific (protocol) to most specific (path components, query, fragment). The only case where the current form of hostname works is email addresses (user at sub dot domain dot tld). IIRC, one of the founders of the WWW (Tim Berners-Lee, perhaps?) already admitted that they got this wrong. I'm all for fixing it, but how? There would need to be easily machine- and human-identifiable differences between old- and new-style hostnames, or there's massive potential for confusion and collisions. There's also an unthinkable amount of software out there that understands hostnames in their current form. 2. The TLD system is broken. Hierarchical hostnames make great sense when you want to refer to the host foo, owned by building four of the computer science department of Caltech. The TLDs we're using today are hacks, a valiant attempt by ICANN to conserve the domain namespace. I hate to admit it, but I think that registering TLDs based on trademark really could work. It'd mean the end of fun websites like http://unicodesnowmanforyou.com/ http://unicodesnowmanforyou.com/, but would bring a huge amount of sanity to the top-level namespace. It would create to a huge new market for private subdomain reselling (whoever gets .www is going to make a killing) where resellers would have the power to be selective about registrations, and to pull domains out from under squatters. Spam-heavy TLDs would lose credibility. It makes today's internet feel like the Wild West.

mcav 16y ago
What about the situations where you have two different companies operating in two different industries with the same trademark? Apple Records v. Apple Computer?
- JacobAldridge 16y ago
  Similar question to mine about different global locations where similar business have similar names. Getting the domain name is an important aspect of choosing your business name - how much harder will that be when you want to open "Computer Solutions" in Kalgoorlie and can't get the domain because of an equally small "Computer Solutions" in Timbuktu?
  - Sidnicious 16y ago
    This won't solve that problem. I think that ICANN should continue to maintain (even enhance) geographic TLDs, so that my little pet groomer in NYC doesn't need to pony up the cash to buy a gTLD or use a commercial second-level domain, but can get a cheap .nyc.ny.us name name. In your case, whichever Computer Solutions gets big enough to buy the gTLD first wins.
- Sidnicious 16y ago
  The same way Apple got me.com: Whichever one is big enough to buy the domain off the other one gets it.
joshu 16y ago
Yeah. I think if a very top level domain was very expensive (say, $5m) then only people who really needed one would be able to get it. www.ibm etc. Providers could resell under their domains (Verisign or whoever would keep .com) by whatever contract they want. Differing domain legal regimes would allow the "right" set of rules through regime competition. And so on.
makecheck 16y ago
"whoever gets .www is going to make a killing" I think that they'd have to make an exception for historical reasons, and simply pre-register "www.". (This kind of reservation is not unprecedented; "example.com" and similar names are off-limits, according to the original RFC 2606.) So "www." could be introduced as a giant no-op in the modified domain name system, and browsers would simply learn to ignore it.
- jarek 16y ago
  This would also mark the first time the first version of Netscape will be unable to load www.google.com. Backwards compatibility on the internet is a pretty big thing.
- Sidnicious 16y ago
  I kid. It's not going to be www, but whichever domain or set of domains is easy to type, sells subdomains for cheaps, and is aggressive about spam control will win. It might be worthwhile for ICANN to make three-and-fewer character names off-limits to private registration.
kjhgfdghjk 16y ago
Janet (the UK's academic network) used to have an addressing based on country first. Just like phone numbers it's easier to route global->local order

mcav 16y ago

What about the situations where you have two different companies operating in two different industries with the same trademark? Apple Records v. Apple Computer?

JacobAldridge 16y ago
Similar question to mine about different global locations where similar business have similar names. Getting the domain name is an important aspect of choosing your business name - how much harder will that be when you want to open "Computer Solutions" in Kalgoorlie and can't get the domain because of an equally small "Computer Solutions" in Timbuktu?
- Sidnicious 16y ago
  This won't solve that problem. I think that ICANN should continue to maintain (even enhance) geographic TLDs, so that my little pet groomer in NYC doesn't need to pony up the cash to buy a gTLD or use a commercial second-level domain, but can get a cheap .nyc.ny.us name name. In your case, whichever Computer Solutions gets big enough to buy the gTLD first wins.
Sidnicious 16y ago
The same way Apple got me.com: Whichever one is big enough to buy the domain off the other one gets it.

joshu 16y ago

Yeah. I think if a very top level domain was very expensive (say, $5m) then only people who really needed one would be able to get it. www.ibm etc. Providers could resell under their domains (Verisign or whoever would keep .com) by whatever contract they want. Differing domain legal regimes would allow the "right" set of rules through regime competition. And so on.

makecheck 16y ago

"whoever gets .www is going to make a killing" I think that they'd have to make an exception for historical reasons, and simply pre-register "www.". (This kind of reservation is not unprecedented; "example.com" and similar names are off-limits, according to the original RFC 2606.) So "www." could be introduced as a giant no-op in the modified domain name system, and browsers would simply learn to ignore it.

jarek 16y ago
This would also mark the first time the first version of Netscape will be unable to load www.google.com. Backwards compatibility on the internet is a pretty big thing.
Sidnicious 16y ago
I kid. It's not going to be www, but whichever domain or set of domains is easy to type, sells subdomains for cheaps, and is aggressive about spam control will win. It might be worthwhile for ICANN to make three-and-fewer character names off-limits to private registration.

kjhgfdghjk 16y ago

Janet (the UK's academic network) used to have an addressing based on country first. Just like phone numbers it's easier to route global->local order