5 ms·

So we're talking about a free market, yes? Ideally, if folks didn't like the pricing scheme that ICANN has presented, they'd go to a competitor. Then you could

by noarchy 15y ago

So we're talking about a free market, yes? Ideally, if folks didn't like the pricing scheme that ICANN has presented, they'd go to a competitor. Then you could "fight with your wallet", to quote the article. Where is ICANN's competition?

fexl 15y ago
Ah but now you're bringing up so many more profound issues, such as centralized versus decentralized DNS, what a decentralized DNS even means, whether there should be a DNS, the SSL certificate authority man-in-the-middle fiasco, etc. In the current situation, a domain name is property, which means it can only have one owner, which means that someone must maintain a title registry, somewhere. Given the current situation, it's hard to think outside that box. But the newer ideas I've heard, such as including a hash digest of a public key inside the URL itself, and even the methods employed by TOR with no central registries, are promising. With those methods, I don't think you'll end up with domain names that are universally unique and universally recognized and easily typed (see Zooko's Triangle), but maybe that's not such a bad thing, given the use of search engines and bookmarks. To answer your question directly, there are alternative top-level domain registries. But most computers and browsers are not configured to query them.
zokier 15y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root#Active_public_root_zones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root#Active_pub...
Isofarro 15y ago
Depends on what you consider the market to be. Domain names: Public Internet Registry (pir.org manages .org), Nominet (in that ICANN recognises Nominet as the owner of .uk - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/03/nominet_joins_icann/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/03/nominet_joins_icann/ - granted this probably requires ICANN to delegate the running of TLDs to organisations. ) Online naming/branding: Facebook, Twitter (in that a growing number of organisations and/or their offerings are being advertised by their Facebook profile name. I'm seeing it regularly in movie trailers these days.)

by noarchy 15y ago

fexl 15y ago

Ah but now you're bringing up so many more profound issues, such as centralized versus decentralized DNS, what a decentralized DNS even means, whether there should be a DNS, the SSL certificate authority man-in-the-middle fiasco, etc. In the current situation, a domain name is property, which means it can only have one owner, which means that someone must maintain a title registry, somewhere. Given the current situation, it's hard to think outside that box. But the newer ideas I've heard, such as including a hash digest of a public key inside the URL itself, and even the methods employed by TOR with no central registries, are promising. With those methods, I don't think you'll end up with domain names that are universally unique and universally recognized and easily typed (see Zooko's Triangle), but maybe that's not such a bad thing, given the use of search engines and bookmarks. To answer your question directly, there are alternative top-level domain registries. But most computers and browsers are not configured to query them.

zokier 15y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root#Active_public_root_zones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root#Active_pub...

Isofarro 15y ago

Depends on what you consider the market to be. Domain names: Public Internet Registry (pir.org manages .org), Nominet (in that ICANN recognises Nominet as the owner of .uk - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/03/nominet_joins_icann/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/03/nominet_joins_icann/ - granted this probably requires ICANN to delegate the running of TLDs to organisations. ) Online naming/branding: Facebook, Twitter (in that a growing number of organisations and/or their offerings are being advertised by their Facebook profile name. I'm seeing it regularly in movie trailers these days.)