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I continue to be against this and similar transactions as it is antithetical to the hierarchical design of DNS. We are approaching a model akin to AOL keywords

I continue to be against this and similar transactions as it is antithetical to the hierarchical design of DNS. We are approaching a model akin to AOL keywords. Instead of a business directly controlling the namespace, we have a quasi-public institution that likely will continue to act at the behest of corporate interests. For those who say the ship has sailed: I say this is only another chipping away at the democratic nature of the net. We must push back, or the beatings will continue.

zeroxfe 7y ago
Um... curious to hear what the alternative is. Fully democratized decentralized naming simply lets the powerful squat on all the good names. It's the tyranny of structurelessness.
- thingification 7y ago
  Maybe this has been done already and has been ineffective for some reason, but I guess the alternative is an organisation - maybe a different quasi-public institution - whose charter explicitly includes and emphasizes looking after the interests of institutions other than profit-making corporations? That is a thing that happens, and it has a real effect. Those organisational charters inevitably reflect some underlying ethical system, and I think the role of those ethics in influencing organisations and their members is still under-appreciated in some contexts (I'm certainly not saying that free market economics or libertarianism - for example - don't have any ethical system, by the way - more the contrary). For example, over here, picking maybe the most visible examples, the NHS, Channel 4, and the BBC - and many of the people who work for them are heavily influenced by the ethical ideas behind them.
- ken 7y ago
  What's a "good name"? Would "amazon.com" be considered one, if Bezos hadn't picked it? The current hierarchy is pretty weird. US GOVernment gets one, and US MILitary gets a separate one, and all US COMmercial entities get one, and most of the rest are non-specified ORGanizations, and the rest of the world gets to build under their 2-letter country codes. Except when company in San Francisco thinks it's cool to use one of those country codes to spell the end of a word, of course. Ask any person to draw a diagram which includes all groups (and potential groups) in the world, and nobody will ever come up with what we've got now. I don't see an obvious solution. It's a bad idea to let companies create their own top level domains (especially when it's taken from a region of indigenous peoples whose land is threatened!), but maintaining the old status quo doesn't seem like such a great idea, either. Have there been any serious proposals to overhaul the structure of DNS names?
  - smitop 7y ago
    > all US COMmercial entities .com isn't US-specific.
  - BrandoElFollito 7y ago
    > It's a bad idea to let companies create their own top level domains Why? I would love to have an open DNS system not controlled by some registrars, and by a body which dictates that .paris is fine, but .hdjdhduh is not (except for a huge cost)
avar 7y ago
When has DNS ever been democratic? Since day one e.g. the .GOV and .EDU TLDs have been used only for educational institutions in the US, whose portion of the word population is on the order of 5%. There's surely a lot of sucky things about the new arrangement where big companies can buy TLDs, but it's much more democratic for the rest of the 95% of humanity than when the US had de-facto control of the system. Just look at how many new TLDs are e.g. owned by Chinese companies.
- jjtheblunt 7y ago
  To be historical, the US had this system running inside the US for a very long time before it was deployed worldwide. It's a quirk of a home grown system having outgrown its original purpose.
  - NikkiA 7y ago
    1970 (NORSAR) from 1968/1969 (beginnings of ARPANET) is not 'a very long time' and predates DNS by over a decade anyway.
  - scythe 7y ago
    The requirement for .edu domains to be US-based was added in 2001.
    - souterrain 7y ago
      I hadn’t realized this. So, we can pack .edu full of for-profit degree mills, but myriad respectable research universities the world over are forbidden. Mind boggling.
- fh973 7y ago
  With some exceptions like teco.edu...
benchplz 7y ago
Based on how the DNS system works, .amazon can be entered in the browser like http://amazon http://amazon. or http://amazon/blah http://amazon/blah if they prefer. Nobody I've seen has done it yet it's only a matter of time though. I think Vint Cerf probably predicted this keyword dystopia.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

zeroxfe 7y ago

Um... curious to hear what the alternative is. Fully democratized decentralized naming simply lets the powerful squat on all the good names. It's the tyranny of structurelessness.

thingification 7y ago
Maybe this has been done already and has been ineffective for some reason, but I guess the alternative is an organisation - maybe a different quasi-public institution - whose charter explicitly includes and emphasizes looking after the interests of institutions other than profit-making corporations? That is a thing that happens, and it has a real effect. Those organisational charters inevitably reflect some underlying ethical system, and I think the role of those ethics in influencing organisations and their members is still under-appreciated in some contexts (I'm certainly not saying that free market economics or libertarianism - for example - don't have any ethical system, by the way - more the contrary). For example, over here, picking maybe the most visible examples, the NHS, Channel 4, and the BBC - and many of the people who work for them are heavily influenced by the ethical ideas behind them.
ken 7y ago
What's a "good name"? Would "amazon.com" be considered one, if Bezos hadn't picked it? The current hierarchy is pretty weird. US GOVernment gets one, and US MILitary gets a separate one, and all US COMmercial entities get one, and most of the rest are non-specified ORGanizations, and the rest of the world gets to build under their 2-letter country codes. Except when company in San Francisco thinks it's cool to use one of those country codes to spell the end of a word, of course. Ask any person to draw a diagram which includes all groups (and potential groups) in the world, and nobody will ever come up with what we've got now. I don't see an obvious solution. It's a bad idea to let companies create their own top level domains (especially when it's taken from a region of indigenous peoples whose land is threatened!), but maintaining the old status quo doesn't seem like such a great idea, either. Have there been any serious proposals to overhaul the structure of DNS names?
- smitop 7y ago
  > all US COMmercial entities .com isn't US-specific.
- BrandoElFollito 7y ago
  > It's a bad idea to let companies create their own top level domains Why? I would love to have an open DNS system not controlled by some registrars, and by a body which dictates that .paris is fine, but .hdjdhduh is not (except for a huge cost)

avar 7y ago

When has DNS ever been democratic? Since day one e.g. the .GOV and .EDU TLDs have been used only for educational institutions in the US, whose portion of the word population is on the order of 5%. There's surely a lot of sucky things about the new arrangement where big companies can buy TLDs, but it's much more democratic for the rest of the 95% of humanity than when the US had de-facto control of the system. Just look at how many new TLDs are e.g. owned by Chinese companies.

jjtheblunt 7y ago
To be historical, the US had this system running inside the US for a very long time before it was deployed worldwide. It's a quirk of a home grown system having outgrown its original purpose.
- NikkiA 7y ago
  1970 (NORSAR) from 1968/1969 (beginnings of ARPANET) is not 'a very long time' and predates DNS by over a decade anyway.
- scythe 7y ago
  The requirement for .edu domains to be US-based was added in 2001.
  - souterrain 7y ago
    I hadn’t realized this. So, we can pack .edu full of for-profit degree mills, but myriad respectable research universities the world over are forbidden. Mind boggling.
fh973 7y ago
With some exceptions like teco.edu...

benchplz 7y ago

Based on how the DNS system works, .amazon can be entered in the browser like http://amazon http://amazon. or http://amazon/blah http://amazon/blah if they prefer. Nobody I've seen has done it yet it's only a matter of time though. I think Vint Cerf probably predicted this keyword dystopia.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]