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Meanwhile, I can't even figure out how to buy domains with my name in them from people who just buy them and sit on them.

by yosito 6y ago

danielmeskin 6y ago
If you figure it out let me know.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
amelius 6y ago
The internet's implementation of name resolving is wrong. If you type "apple.com" you should get a disambiguation page saying "Did you mean the grocery store, the record company, or the computer company?" and from there you can reach the desired website. Somewhat like how it works in Wikipedia. Unlike land, names are not a scarcity and can be shared. So why pretend they are like land?
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  Land can be shared just like names, and the reality is there's only so many disambiguations one can learn. Even with that ability, consumers are only going to remember one apple.com.
- scubbo 6y ago
  This is a very interesting statement. My gut reaction is "no, that's wrong!", but I can't quite articulate _why_ that's wrong - so, please consider this reply in the spirit of an auto-Socratic dialogue, rather than an argument intended to dissuade you. You're right that names themselves are not truly scarce*, but "convenience of being referenced by a name on the internet" most certainly _is_ a scarce resource. There can only be one "first resolved entity" - this is why companies invest in SEO**. So it seems like what you're actually arguing for (and apologies if I'm misrepresenting you here!) is a situation where it's not possible for the average internet consumer to directly reference a particular domain, but rather where all name-resolution queries _have to_ go through a hypothetical unbiased "top-level" search engine - one which indexes not documents, but domains. Is that right? If that's the case, then we've then opened up several other problems: - who decides the order in which those results get displayed? You may not think it matters, but I can promise you that NEO ("Name Engine Optimization") would then become a lucrative industry. Apple-the-computer-company certainly wouldn't stand for being the third result for apple.com - how do direct links and bookmarks work? - If there's some sub-identifier ("apple.computer.com" resolves directly), then who assigns those sub-identifiers? If ICAAN or a similar organization, then we're right back at the current situation, but one level deeper - the IT company for the Apple grocery store would be fighting (with their wallet) against the Apple Computer company. - If direct links only work via IP addresses, well, the average consumer wouldn't be delighted with that; nor would print advertisers trying to share a human-memorable address It's a tempting idea, for certain, but I can't see a way of implementing this that doesn't immediately give rise to the same problems one layer deeper. You've clearly thought about this more than I have, though, so I look forward to hearing more about it! * though to an extent, they are; since there can not practically be multiple items of a given name within a category - if every man was named John, then we would need some other way to distinguish them, and so "John<-identifier>" would _become_ their name ** where, here, the "name" is a search term rather than a specific one-to-one address - and, yes, I recognize that that's not _quite_ the same thing
  - scubbo 6y ago
    Ugh, I apparently can't edit this to reformat. Apologies - the `-`s in the paragraph beginning "If that's the case" were, clearly, meant to be bullets or sub-bullets.
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  > names are not a scarcity and can be shared Domain names cannot be effectively shared between non-cooperating entities. Someone has to own the DNS A/AAAA/CNAME/etc records, and be able to change them at will. They have to point to someone's server. It doesn't matter what technological implementation underpins name resolution, it's a fundamentally important property that it must be possible to have exclusive ownership of a domain name. If I'm trying to reach my bank, I need to know that I'm talking to my bank, and we have a whole technological stack designed to ensure that, including cryptographic authentication and public logs (Certificate Transparency) to make sure nobody can secretly tamper with that authentication. Any system that cannot provide such authentication is not a viable naming scheme. There's a long-standing concept that has been discussed many times that naming could be based entirely on that cryptographic authentication, without having any kind of "human-readable" name at all. However, such a system would not solve the full problem that needs solving; it would just mean there would then need to be a separate directory system to help people find the server they actually want and then talk securely to that server.
  - bootloop 6y ago
    .com is shared, and .apple.com can be shared across multiple subdomains in the same way. We already have that eg. co, gov etc. The registrar would have to maintain the link lists and host them on apple.com for you to choose. You would get a subdomain which you can manage.
    - JoshTriplett 6y ago
      com isn't "shared"; it points exclusively to the .com registrar, who determine the ownership of names under .com. It would certainly be possible to treat "apple.com" the same way, but then, who decides who gets "records.apple.com" and who gets "computer.apple.com"? Does "records.apple.com" go to Apple Records, the music label, or to Apple Records, a hypothetical bookkeeping ("record-keeping") company, as one of many possible conflicts?
- mitchdoogle 6y ago
  Isn't that kind of the function of search engines?
- nightfly 6y ago
  I kind of like the new world of more TLDs to solve this. I really wish they weren't privately owned though. apple.grocery apple.song/radio/fm apple.computer
- 3np 6y ago
  I think what you're looking for is a search engine.
7steps2much 6y ago
Hell, even if you happen to figure out the how, the prices some of those people want is just ridiculous.
jb775 6y ago
I'm also curious how people actually go about purchasing domains immediately after expiring. Like for example when Trump bought jebbush.com during primary season because it happened to expire then (and he temporarily re-routed it to his own site lol)...They must have done something more technical to lock it in, does anyone know?
- stevekemp 6y ago
  Some registrars do offer the ability to "pre-order", waiting until a domain has expired and then snapping it up. I own steve.org.uk, and after moving to Finland I noticed steve.fi was going to expire in the near-future. So I setup a cron-job that would text me the moment it became free. First of all it went from registered to being in the redemption state, then it became generally available. I managed to register it once I'd woken up - though competition was less than I'd otherwise expect because at the time you needed to have a Finnish identity-number to register Finnish domains. I suspect that is no longer true.
  - ggrelet 6y ago
    Would you mind sharing your the script of your cron-job?
    - stevekemp 6y ago
      This was a couple of years ago, but it was something like: whois steve.fi | ( grep "Domain not found" && echo "DOMAIN IS NOT REGISTERED - GET IT NOW!" )
tmk1108 6y ago
There is a domain name I wanted and the minimum offer price is 140k. I don't know even know who will pay for it, it's not like it can be used for a company name.
- yosito 6y ago
  In my case, I can't even find prices or how to contact someone who might be willing to sell the domain, and I'd be happy to pay a few thousand dollars, though not 140k.
FractalHQ 6y ago
Domain squatting is scummy if you do it to should be ashamed of yourself imo

Meanwhile, I can't even figure out how to buy domains with my name in them from people who just buy them and sit on them.

by yosito 6y ago

Meanwhile, I can't even figure out how to buy domains with my name in them from people who just buy them and sit on them.

danielmeskin 6y ago

If you figure it out let me know.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

amelius 6y ago

The internet's implementation of name resolving is wrong. If you type "apple.com" you should get a disambiguation page saying "Did you mean the grocery store, the record company, or the computer company?" and from there you can reach the desired website. Somewhat like how it works in Wikipedia. Unlike land, names are not a scarcity and can be shared. So why pretend they are like land?

throwaway3699 6y ago
Land can be shared just like names, and the reality is there's only so many disambiguations one can learn. Even with that ability, consumers are only going to remember one apple.com.
scubbo 6y ago
This is a very interesting statement. My gut reaction is "no, that's wrong!", but I can't quite articulate _why_ that's wrong - so, please consider this reply in the spirit of an auto-Socratic dialogue, rather than an argument intended to dissuade you. You're right that names themselves are not truly scarce*, but "convenience of being referenced by a name on the internet" most certainly _is_ a scarce resource. There can only be one "first resolved entity" - this is why companies invest in SEO**. So it seems like what you're actually arguing for (and apologies if I'm misrepresenting you here!) is a situation where it's not possible for the average internet consumer to directly reference a particular domain, but rather where all name-resolution queries _have to_ go through a hypothetical unbiased "top-level" search engine - one which indexes not documents, but domains. Is that right? If that's the case, then we've then opened up several other problems: - who decides the order in which those results get displayed? You may not think it matters, but I can promise you that NEO ("Name Engine Optimization") would then become a lucrative industry. Apple-the-computer-company certainly wouldn't stand for being the third result for apple.com - how do direct links and bookmarks work? - If there's some sub-identifier ("apple.computer.com" resolves directly), then who assigns those sub-identifiers? If ICAAN or a similar organization, then we're right back at the current situation, but one level deeper - the IT company for the Apple grocery store would be fighting (with their wallet) against the Apple Computer company. - If direct links only work via IP addresses, well, the average consumer wouldn't be delighted with that; nor would print advertisers trying to share a human-memorable address It's a tempting idea, for certain, but I can't see a way of implementing this that doesn't immediately give rise to the same problems one layer deeper. You've clearly thought about this more than I have, though, so I look forward to hearing more about it! * though to an extent, they are; since there can not practically be multiple items of a given name within a category - if every man was named John, then we would need some other way to distinguish them, and so "John<-identifier>" would _become_ their name ** where, here, the "name" is a search term rather than a specific one-to-one address - and, yes, I recognize that that's not _quite_ the same thing
- scubbo 6y ago
  Ugh, I apparently can't edit this to reformat. Apologies - the `-`s in the paragraph beginning "If that's the case" were, clearly, meant to be bullets or sub-bullets.
JoshTriplett 6y ago
> names are not a scarcity and can be shared Domain names cannot be effectively shared between non-cooperating entities. Someone has to own the DNS A/AAAA/CNAME/etc records, and be able to change them at will. They have to point to someone's server. It doesn't matter what technological implementation underpins name resolution, it's a fundamentally important property that it must be possible to have exclusive ownership of a domain name. If I'm trying to reach my bank, I need to know that I'm talking to my bank, and we have a whole technological stack designed to ensure that, including cryptographic authentication and public logs (Certificate Transparency) to make sure nobody can secretly tamper with that authentication. Any system that cannot provide such authentication is not a viable naming scheme. There's a long-standing concept that has been discussed many times that naming could be based entirely on that cryptographic authentication, without having any kind of "human-readable" name at all. However, such a system would not solve the full problem that needs solving; it would just mean there would then need to be a separate directory system to help people find the server they actually want and then talk securely to that server.
- bootloop 6y ago
  .com is shared, and .apple.com can be shared across multiple subdomains in the same way. We already have that eg. co, gov etc. The registrar would have to maintain the link lists and host them on apple.com for you to choose. You would get a subdomain which you can manage.
  - JoshTriplett 6y ago
    com isn't "shared"; it points exclusively to the .com registrar, who determine the ownership of names under .com. It would certainly be possible to treat "apple.com" the same way, but then, who decides who gets "records.apple.com" and who gets "computer.apple.com"? Does "records.apple.com" go to Apple Records, the music label, or to Apple Records, a hypothetical bookkeeping ("record-keeping") company, as one of many possible conflicts?
mitchdoogle 6y ago
Isn't that kind of the function of search engines?
nightfly 6y ago
I kind of like the new world of more TLDs to solve this. I really wish they weren't privately owned though. apple.grocery apple.song/radio/fm apple.computer
3np 6y ago
I think what you're looking for is a search engine.

7steps2much 6y ago

Hell, even if you happen to figure out the how, the prices some of those people want is just ridiculous.

jb775 6y ago

I'm also curious how people actually go about purchasing domains immediately after expiring. Like for example when Trump bought jebbush.com during primary season because it happened to expire then (and he temporarily re-routed it to his own site lol)...They must have done something more technical to lock it in, does anyone know?

stevekemp 6y ago
Some registrars do offer the ability to "pre-order", waiting until a domain has expired and then snapping it up. I own steve.org.uk, and after moving to Finland I noticed steve.fi was going to expire in the near-future. So I setup a cron-job that would text me the moment it became free. First of all it went from registered to being in the redemption state, then it became generally available. I managed to register it once I'd woken up - though competition was less than I'd otherwise expect because at the time you needed to have a Finnish identity-number to register Finnish domains. I suspect that is no longer true.
- ggrelet 6y ago
  Would you mind sharing your the script of your cron-job?
  - stevekemp 6y ago
    This was a couple of years ago, but it was something like: whois steve.fi | ( grep "Domain not found" && echo "DOMAIN IS NOT REGISTERED - GET IT NOW!" )

tmk1108 6y ago

There is a domain name I wanted and the minimum offer price is 140k. I don't know even know who will pay for it, it's not like it can be used for a company name.

yosito 6y ago
In my case, I can't even find prices or how to contact someone who might be willing to sell the domain, and I'd be happy to pay a few thousand dollars, though not 140k.

FractalHQ 6y ago

Domain squatting is scummy if you do it to should be ashamed of yourself imo