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I'm afraid you've misconstrued the meaning of "defensive registrations" to mean holding a domain without a legitimate entity name to justify it. It isn't. It i

I'm afraid you've misconstrued the meaning of "defensive registrations" to mean holding a domain without a legitimate entity name to justify it. It isn't. It is when an existing holder, e.g. mystartup.com, additionally registers mystartup.biz and mystartup.co and other useless TLDs so that no-one else can have it, without having any intention of using it. Your "hope" that people might use these other new TLDs instead of .com et al is entirely undermined by the evidence of .biz and .info. Sorry, but fantasy land doesn't apply here, just economics. NB: if you have some peculiar impression that defensive registration is a form of squatting, then, y'know, call it whatever you like, the outcome is the same.

lsc 14y ago
The whole point of having multiple namespaces is to have, well, multiple namespaces. If everyone registers their name in all namespaces, there aren't any more names to go around, just more fees for every name owner to pay. The thing is, it's completely legitimate for prgmr.com, prgmr.net, and prgmr.org to be unrelated entities. It's also legitimate for prgmr.sux or whatever (assuming that top level domain is created) to be owned by someone that wants to say bad things about me. The only illegitimate use is attempting to deceive users in to thinking that you are me. Though, I think I understand your point better now; You are saying that we really only have one namespace, and the "buy every variation of your name on all top level domains" ship has sailed. If you hold that position, (and while I disagree, I see how you could hold that position) then yes, adding another top level domain does not expand the namespace, but it does mean that all name owners need to buy another name. While I do agree that people have a strong preference for .com names, I think this means people are less likely to confuse a .com with a .biz or a .ly or what have you. In fact, almost the only uses I've seen of other than com/net/org and government sites have been for companies that integrated the top level domain into the name, like del.icio.us or what have you. I don't think the existence of prgmr.ly would cause any confusion. This got me wondering what prgmr.net was (I mean, I am kinda a network, so prgmr.net is arguably more appropriate) - it looks like a Korean programmer's blog. I approve.

lsc 14y ago

The whole point of having multiple namespaces is to have, well, multiple namespaces. If everyone registers their name in all namespaces, there aren't any more names to go around, just more fees for every name owner to pay. The thing is, it's completely legitimate for prgmr.com, prgmr.net, and prgmr.org to be unrelated entities. It's also legitimate for prgmr.sux or whatever (assuming that top level domain is created) to be owned by someone that wants to say bad things about me. The only illegitimate use is attempting to deceive users in to thinking that you are me. Though, I think I understand your point better now; You are saying that we really only have one namespace, and the "buy every variation of your name on all top level domains" ship has sailed. If you hold that position, (and while I disagree, I see how you could hold that position) then yes, adding another top level domain does not expand the namespace, but it does mean that all name owners need to buy another name. While I do agree that people have a strong preference for .com names, I think this means people are less likely to confuse a .com with a .biz or a .ly or what have you. In fact, almost the only uses I've seen of other than com/net/org and government sites have been for companies that integrated the top level domain into the name, like del.icio.us or what have you. I don't think the existence of prgmr.ly would cause any confusion. This got me wondering what prgmr.net was (I mean, I am kinda a network, so prgmr.net is arguably more appropriate) - it looks like a Korean programmer's blog. I approve.