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> but not a good reason to pollute the global namespace What does that even mean though? In what way is the global namespace being "polluted"? Adding more TL

> but not a good reason to pollute the global namespace What does that even mean though? In what way is the global namespace being "polluted"? Adding more TLDs doesn't affect the existing ones. It's not adding scale problems that DNS can't handle. This seems to be a subjective concern; some people don't like that there are more valid TLDs now than there used to be. That's not pollution though. > Squatting should be made illegal/against terms and actually prosecuted/applied. Be very careful about asking for increased enforcement. It's a great way for the authorities to abuse their newfound power. Most people involved in this field do not remotely want more of this. Also, domains are gonna have to cost $100s/year to fund all of this increased enforcement. How do you even define squatting? How do you prosecute it? This isn't remotely workable. > Registering domains by 100s or even 100'000s you should not get discounts - you should get unaffordable price hikes. How? TLD registries typically no longer even know the identity of the registrants. This would leave enforcement up to the registrars. How does a registrar solve the problem of people using multiple accounts to register domains? How do you solve the global problem that there are thousands of accredited registrars, and that people could register domains through many different ones? Without massive centralization, this is not a remotely workable solution, and massive centralization would be a "cure" much worse than the disease. > On ccTLDs maybe people could get a few free domains Free, or even low cost, domains are guaranteed to lead to abuse. Also, how do you individually allocate free domains to people?

labawi 7y ago
> In what way is the global namespace being "polluted"? There was a time you could name your hosts server1.dev and server1.prod. These days, what am I supposed to use for internal server communication, lest it some day resolve to something on the internet or a trusted CA creates a valid certificate for it? Domain names were organized in a relatively stable hierarchy, with a set of registries. The way TLD registrations are going, all organizations will want their TLD and we will end up with a single centralized tree of unnumerable registries. You use to know what were the locally relevant domains. Now, is it <company>.co.ccTLD, <company>.ccTLD, or is it <company>.dev, or <company>.<company> or is it <company>.uno, ..gmbh, ..kaufen, ..kinder, or maybe <company>.wazoo, because why not? You get a link to or email from <your-ISP>.talk - is it legit, or a fake in a spamhaus registrar? If you have a .bank, a .cafe, maybe a .shop, but you also do .trade, and .trading, and of course everyone wants to be .top ... of the hundreds of TLDs, are you supposed to register all that could apply and pay large sums for it, because people are going to type <company>.<whatever-i-think-it-is>? If we create dozens(?) of new TLDs per year, noone will remember the difference between TLDs run by nigerian scammers and those run by respectable businesses.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  There never has been such a time. It has always been a mistake to use a fake domain name, even just on internal networks. This has caused problems as far back as the 90s, e.g. when companies merged and suddenly realized they had conflicting fake domain names upon connecting their networks and now lots of stuff started failing. For more information see: https://jdebp.eu/FGA/dns-use-domain-names-that-you-own.html https://jdebp.eu/FGA/dns-use-domain-names-that-you-own.html So the only time it has ever been safe to name your hosts server1.dev is within the past year, now that .dev is actually live and you can use a real globally unique domain name that you actually own, thus preventing any of the possible issues that have been there all along. And there aren't any TLDs run by Nigerian scammers. You may be underestimating the difficulty, cost, and technical know how of acquiring and running a TLD.
  - labawi 7y ago
    I'm sure ICANN would love to claim ownership of the entire name hierarchy, but I disagree. At least on my servers. First problem with your suggestion - you don't own domains, you rent them. That can change, you have to pay, someone can forget to renew, etc. Though I agree, sometimes it is better to use proper registered domains. When setting up limited scale server-to-server communication I really do not want to interact with DNS. It's all downside and no upside. Servers get names in a subdomain of a widely squatted invalid TLD, names with locally appropriate IPs go in a hosts file and I can be reasonably sure they get resolved to the proper IPs, or as a failure mode - none at all. With the occasional network layer security, it is important to get the IPs right. If the need should arise, I can change the domain. I don't see how using a proper DNS name would be better instead of a clearly local one I can trust.
labawi 7y ago
> Free, or even low cost, domains are guaranteed to lead to abuse. Also, how do you individually allocate free domains to people? You go to a government site with your electronic national ID (some countries have those) and request 2-3 domains that are free. You only get to change a free domain 1x per year or maybe longer. Doesn't apply to all countries, but how would that be worse than what we have now? Everyone could have email and websites on their own domains, probably even hosted for free - that's decentralization/freedom.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  So you'd have to go wait in line for hours at the DMV to get your domain names? That sounds strictly worse than what we have now, and would be way more expensive for governments to administer (as ccTLDs would now be a cost center rather than a profit center).
  - labawi 7y ago
    We don't have DMVs here, we are required to have national eID cards, which we can use to log in to government sites to do tax returns and stuff. It's government, so it would cost a lot, but it shouldn't be too much to implement limited per-person domain registration. In USA it would be harder. Administrative costs - additional domains can and should cost more. You can collect fees from companies that don't want to be reliant on that one guy, or just call it a day, give a domain for free to companies and call it administrative expenses. How much does it cost to run a ccTLD?
labawi 7y ago
> TLD registries typically no longer even know the identity of the registrants. Maybe they should know? Why do they pester me every year about my contact details? I think they also say my registration can be voided if I use fake info. If you need a bunch of LLCs to register thousands of domains, your expenses go way up. Not all registries need to work the same way. It should be sufficient if some applicable ones are rinsed. > How do you even define squatting? How do you prosecute it? Registering domains for the purpose of selling at a higher price. If you look at the top domain holders, I'm sure it would not be that difficult to prove in court what the purpose of all those domain registrations are. Civil proceedings would probably be better, at least for smaller squatters. If you squat lots of domains, you get a chance of someone hyperactive suing you, or making complaints to the registrar.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  The reason is GDPR, plus whois privacy/proxy services. How do you possibly know which domains were registered with that intent? That seems like it'd require mind reading. And who would be doing the enforcement? National governments? Good luck with that. Squatters would just operate out of the countries that don't care. I own roughly a dozen domain names. Most aren't in use. I didn't register these with the intent of reselling them, but if someone contacted me offering me a thousand bucks for almost any of them I'd take that deal. I suspect most other people would too. Does that make us all squatters? Should we be arrested and prosecuted?

labawi 7y ago

> In what way is the global namespace being "polluted"? There was a time you could name your hosts server1.dev and server1.prod. These days, what am I supposed to use for internal server communication, lest it some day resolve to something on the internet or a trusted CA creates a valid certificate for it? Domain names were organized in a relatively stable hierarchy, with a set of registries. The way TLD registrations are going, all organizations will want their TLD and we will end up with a single centralized tree of unnumerable registries. You use to know what were the locally relevant domains. Now, is it <company>.co.ccTLD, <company>.ccTLD, or is it <company>.dev, or <company>.<company> or is it <company>.uno, ..gmbh, ..kaufen, ..kinder, or maybe <company>.wazoo, because why not? You get a link to or email from <your-ISP>.talk - is it legit, or a fake in a spamhaus registrar? If you have a .bank, a .cafe, maybe a .shop, but you also do .trade, and .trading, and of course everyone wants to be .top ... of the hundreds of TLDs, are you supposed to register all that could apply and pay large sums for it, because people are going to type <company>.<whatever-i-think-it-is>? If we create dozens(?) of new TLDs per year, noone will remember the difference between TLDs run by nigerian scammers and those run by respectable businesses.

CydeWeys 7y ago
There never has been such a time. It has always been a mistake to use a fake domain name, even just on internal networks. This has caused problems as far back as the 90s, e.g. when companies merged and suddenly realized they had conflicting fake domain names upon connecting their networks and now lots of stuff started failing. For more information see: https://jdebp.eu/FGA/dns-use-domain-names-that-you-own.html https://jdebp.eu/FGA/dns-use-domain-names-that-you-own.html So the only time it has ever been safe to name your hosts server1.dev is within the past year, now that .dev is actually live and you can use a real globally unique domain name that you actually own, thus preventing any of the possible issues that have been there all along. And there aren't any TLDs run by Nigerian scammers. You may be underestimating the difficulty, cost, and technical know how of acquiring and running a TLD.
- labawi 7y ago
  I'm sure ICANN would love to claim ownership of the entire name hierarchy, but I disagree. At least on my servers. First problem with your suggestion - you don't own domains, you rent them. That can change, you have to pay, someone can forget to renew, etc. Though I agree, sometimes it is better to use proper registered domains. When setting up limited scale server-to-server communication I really do not want to interact with DNS. It's all downside and no upside. Servers get names in a subdomain of a widely squatted invalid TLD, names with locally appropriate IPs go in a hosts file and I can be reasonably sure they get resolved to the proper IPs, or as a failure mode - none at all. With the occasional network layer security, it is important to get the IPs right. If the need should arise, I can change the domain. I don't see how using a proper DNS name would be better instead of a clearly local one I can trust.

labawi 7y ago

> Free, or even low cost, domains are guaranteed to lead to abuse. Also, how do you individually allocate free domains to people? You go to a government site with your electronic national ID (some countries have those) and request 2-3 domains that are free. You only get to change a free domain 1x per year or maybe longer. Doesn't apply to all countries, but how would that be worse than what we have now? Everyone could have email and websites on their own domains, probably even hosted for free - that's decentralization/freedom.

CydeWeys 7y ago
So you'd have to go wait in line for hours at the DMV to get your domain names? That sounds strictly worse than what we have now, and would be way more expensive for governments to administer (as ccTLDs would now be a cost center rather than a profit center).
- labawi 7y ago
  We don't have DMVs here, we are required to have national eID cards, which we can use to log in to government sites to do tax returns and stuff. It's government, so it would cost a lot, but it shouldn't be too much to implement limited per-person domain registration. In USA it would be harder. Administrative costs - additional domains can and should cost more. You can collect fees from companies that don't want to be reliant on that one guy, or just call it a day, give a domain for free to companies and call it administrative expenses. How much does it cost to run a ccTLD?

labawi 7y ago

> TLD registries typically no longer even know the identity of the registrants. Maybe they should know? Why do they pester me every year about my contact details? I think they also say my registration can be voided if I use fake info. If you need a bunch of LLCs to register thousands of domains, your expenses go way up. Not all registries need to work the same way. It should be sufficient if some applicable ones are rinsed. > How do you even define squatting? How do you prosecute it? Registering domains for the purpose of selling at a higher price. If you look at the top domain holders, I'm sure it would not be that difficult to prove in court what the purpose of all those domain registrations are. Civil proceedings would probably be better, at least for smaller squatters. If you squat lots of domains, you get a chance of someone hyperactive suing you, or making complaints to the registrar.

CydeWeys 7y ago
The reason is GDPR, plus whois privacy/proxy services. How do you possibly know which domains were registered with that intent? That seems like it'd require mind reading. And who would be doing the enforcement? National governments? Good luck with that. Squatters would just operate out of the countries that don't care. I own roughly a dozen domain names. Most aren't in use. I didn't register these with the intent of reselling them, but if someone contacted me offering me a thousand bucks for almost any of them I'd take that deal. I suspect most other people would too. Does that make us all squatters? Should we be arrested and prosecuted?