13 ms·

New generic top-level domains

105 points by darkhorn 13y ago

Spittie 13y ago
>Over 1,300 new names or "strings" could become available in the next few years. I'm the only one that doesn't like this? Having more domains it's nice, but having so many just feels overwhelming. I'm also sure that some/many of those will be completely ignored by everyone, and thus making me wonder why introduce them in the first place.
- Einstalbert 13y ago
  I would love to take the sting out of someone getting the one or two "primary" domains for an IP, even something generic a concept as "grow.com" or something along those lines, and splitting it up so that just about anybody can get a specific flavor in. "No, we're not grow.com, but we're also not grow.xxx or grow.medical, we're grow.coffee!"
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  The way they've chosen which TLDs to issue is kind of lame. The entire concept of some company name as a TLD is ridiculous. It's just namespace pollution. Using just the TLD without any subdomain is going to invoke bugs in old software or be confused with a search term in the address bar, and using 'www.chase' instead of 'chase.com' is pointless and confusing. What they should have done instead is created a bunch of TLDs for various different industries. Having 'chase.bank' and 'ford.cars' would have made a lot more sense.
  - nightcracker 13y ago
    'www.chase' would be equally valid as 'www.com'. Nothing wrong with it.
acjohnson55 13y ago
Wow, just looking at the list so far, it appears the squatting has already begun in earnest. It's the dot-com land grab all over again.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- marshray 13y ago
  But this time around they raised the application fee by three or four orders of magnitude to make it more fair.
  - PythonicAlpha 13y ago
    Very fair, indeed!
GuiA 13y ago
Lots of LLCs in there. Sounds like companies set up mostly for the prospect of short term profits, e.g.: COLLEGE >> XYZ.COM, LLC UNIVERSITY >> Little Station, LLC VODKA >> Top Level Domain Holdings Limited (those guys have quite a few such as "COOKING" and "FISHING") It used to be that you had to squat the web one domain name at the time, now you can just squat a whole TLD!
- mcphage 13y ago
  > Lots of LLCs in there. Sounds like companies set up mostly for the prospect of short term profits I suspect they're mostly shell companies.
- duskwuff 13y ago
  Many of the LLCs are shell companies. In particular, basically every instance of "Adjective Noun, LLC" (e.g, "Foggy Sky, LLC", "Little Station, LLC", "Baxter Hill, LLC"...) is a shell owned by donuts.co, and "Charleston Road Registry" is a shell owned by Google!
  - nandhp 13y ago
    .FOO as well. See http://www.google.com/registry/ http://www.google.com/registry/
    - Danieru 13y ago
      They let Google have .ads! I think that is a bad idea.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- justincormack 13y ago
  I saw the business plan for one of these companies, registered in Gibralter. Not sure if it got the ones it wanted. They were looking for investors on hugely optimistic takeup figures.
- 13y ago
ama729 13y ago
If someone else is wondering who is "Charleston Road Registry" it's actually .. Google. http://www.internetnews.com/blog/skerner/who-is-charleston-road-registry-the-leading-gtld-applicant.html http://www.internetnews.com/blog/skerner/who-is-charleston-r... Also, it seem the sartup Donuts[0] is snatching a lot of domains using shell companies[1]. [0]http://icannwiki.com/index.php/Donuts http://icannwiki.com/index.php/Donuts [1] http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.voyage http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.voyage http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.camera http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.camera http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.guru http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.guru
- devindotcom 13y ago
  You just inadvertently created a new portmanteau for sartorial startups!
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- joliv 13y ago
  For the lazy, Charleston Road Registry has filed for the strings SOY and みんな, Japanese for "everyone."
  - brianbreslin 13y ago
    soy is effectively AM in spanish. yo.soy/google
    - timv 13y ago
      So, how long until I can register yo.no.soy/marinero ?
dennyferra 13y ago
Is that $185,000 per evaluation for a gTLD? Are there other costs involved?
sjtgraham 13y ago
A bank controlling its own TLD might make phishing attempts easier to spot for the less technically literate.
- Goopplesoft 13y ago
  Are you required to sell out domains under a gTLD? It'd be interesting to create some sort of must-be-a-sub-entity TLDs like ".bank" which requires it members to be banks (similar to .edu and .gov). But I can't imagine any entity but ICANN itself managing that in a 'fair' manor.
  - cenhyperion 13y ago
    I know ".ngo" is planning on being released at some point this year and will (supposedly) only be available to registered NGOs
    - waps 13y ago
      It's like a job application filter. Start working for a .int company, only pay 10% income tax (but still get all benefits everyone else gets, sometimes more).
  - vesinisa 13y ago
    The registration limitations can be arbitrary. For example, I was excited to see that my city had signed up for a domain, but in the application they say the domain will be closed from public use and that they will delegate names only to official departments of the city. But I guess if you are planning to make a commercial operation around a gTLD, its best to let anyone register.
msvan 13y ago
Many of these gTLDs sound exotic today, but I bet 10 years from now they will be nothing special. I for one welcome it, if only to dethrone the dot com. It doesn't make sense for us all to try and squeeze into the same limited gTLD space. Perhaps this will be the most efficient way of killing off domain squatters, by flooding the market with viable domains. It's just a matter of time before half of all links submitted to HN end with ".js".
- duskwuff 13y ago
  Two-letter TLDs are reserved for ccTLDs - they're assigned based on the ISO country code (ISO 3166-1) of the country. As there is currently no country with the country code "JS", the TLD cannot be assigned.
  - nmrm 13y ago
    Sounds like it's time to found a new nation-state. National exports will include whatever I happen to sell on Ebay that year, and millions of dollars worth of domain names :-)
- Tloewald 13y ago
  So far a whole buttload of TLDs have failed to dethrone .com. I suspect adding a huge collection of new TLDs might actually make .com _more_ valuable. After all, if you hear about some company or product, are you going to guess foobarbiz.randomstring? Heck, most browsers will guess foobarbiz.com for you.
  - lstamour 13y ago
    No wonder Google wants in: (a) they can profit off their worldwide infrastructure and (b) everyone will have to use Google to figure out which .foo or .bar they need! /cue maniacal laugh
- tripzilch 13y ago
  > It's just a matter of time before half of all links submitted to HN end with ".js". you forgot .css .2048 and .flappy
est 13y ago
Need an auto reg-exp generator from that damn page.
- nwh 13y ago
  https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat
  - voltagex_ 13y ago
    Any idea why people would want their tld removed from that? e.g. nsw.gov.au
    - timv 13y ago
      My guess would be that they want to be able to share cookies across their sub-domains. That file is saying that we should effectively treat: education.vic.gov.au and courts.vic.gov.au as being independent entities that happen to both use the "vic.gov.au" domain, but otherwise have nothing in common (as far as same-origin policies go) But fairtrading.nsw.gov.au and housing.nsw.gov.au as being separate sub-domains operated by the same entity (in this case the NSW gov't) It's certainly easier for those who operate site on that domain if they can implement single sign on, and cross-(sub)-domain resource loading without needing to jump through hoops like CORS. However, since nsw.gov.au is also farmed out to every local council in the state as well as every government department, it's putting the security of your cookies into the hands a lot of organisations over which you have very limited control.
    - nwh 13y ago
      Really don't try to guess our governments actions. You'll end up broken.
hiphopyo 13y ago
Wish there was like a mob that goes around beating up squatters.
- zo1 13y ago
  Oh so squatters are bad, but the people that enable them aren't? What they have now is a devious double-standard system. It starts off with "first-come, first-serve" and then when money is involved and some large/well-established entity cries foul, they then change the rules to be "more-money, first-serve". Now don't get me wrong, I think domain squatting is a horrible, horrible practice. But we really need to solve the root of the problem, and that is a greedy ICANN that enables domain-registrars, and itself, to double-dip the cake for profit!
PythonicAlpha 13y ago
New gold-rush ahead? The list feels to me at the first look very similar to the patent system -- everybody is just pitching "their" claims. First come, first money, first served. The others will stay with the "pack": <longname>.com or <evenlongername>.de.
- hrktb 13y ago
  I feel this is kind of pointless though. As of now, most people will first do a search on parts of the domain to go to the right site; having more TLD around won't reduce this behavior.
  - PythonicAlpha 13y ago
    But some reason seems to exist, that makes all those companies paying a stack of money. Even if all internet users do so, I think the companies trust to get some credibility by owning such domains.
- robryan 13y ago
  If anything this might discourage picking up a lot of domain names. Instead of the somewhat standard practise of buying your name under say 5 top level domains with all these inclusions most companies will probably decide it isn't worth it to buy their name on every available top level.
jboynyc 13y ago
Since in addition to .EDU we will soon have .EDUCATION, .UNIVERSITY and .COLLEGE, Monash University was smart to just get .MONASH.
- HenryMc 13y ago
  http://about.monash/ http://about.monash/
  - daturkel 13y ago
    So is the schema for these branded tlds supposed to change from our current name.tld/page/subpage.html to page.name/subpage.html? That strikes me as a huge waste of time setting up subdomains for what are effectively just pages.
    - chrismorgan 13y ago
      As an example of how it can be handled, Monash has https://my.monash.edu.au/ https://my.monash.edu.au/ which is already known by the name my.monash; I expect that they will shift it to https://my.monash/ https://my.monash/ in the fairly near future. What it ends up boiling down to for Monash University is that you can drop the .edu, .edu.au or .edu.my part. Oh, and you get to cough up a decent amount of dough for the endeavour (for the TLD application, for TLD maintenance and for software systems and such).
  - darkhorn 13y ago
    > We even beat Google to the punch.
techscruggs 13y ago
Can someone explain to me why they don't just open up every possible string as a TLD?
- eli 13y ago
  Isn't that pretty much what they're doing? Are there strings that somebody wanted to pay to register but ICANN declined?
- vacri 13y ago
  They pretty much have - but you need to apply for it, and be able to manage the work of a TLD registrar.
- nmrm 13y ago
  It looks like there's at least some administration involved in the assignment. See the notes section of this table: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains#ICANN-era_generic_top-level_domains http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_doma... For instance, if you register for .wed and take longer than 2 years to get married, both your fiance AND your registrar will be angry with you.
- cheepin 13y ago
  DNS I'd imagine. Traditionally, the root DNS servers points to TLD servers. It doesn't really make sense for every possible string to be a TLD.
- vesinisa 13y ago
  They are making some serious money from this scheme. Google alone has spent $18.6 million on registration fees of its 101 different new gTLD.
  - sneak 13y ago
    Fucking up the whole internet for only a few hundred million dollars seems really incredibly short-sighted to me.
maaku 13y ago
Am I the only one disgusted by this?
- zo1 13y ago
  Nope, we're with you on this one. It's a flat-out money grab. From an institution that we expect to keep the internet running. Great idea, right? You know, instead, they could fix the damn email and content spamming rampantly going on the internet. But no, those things don't give ICANN yearly profits. I guess they fail to realize that spam-detection is one of the main things behind Gmail's phenomenal success since its inception.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    You know, instead, they could fix the damn email and content spamming rampantly going on the internet. How exactly could they achieve that?
    - zo1 13y ago
      First they could start by revoking domain ownership if spam comes from there. If it keeps persisting and from multiple different IP addresses from the same block, start taking IP blocks away until it stops. Spam email doesn't just appear out of the ether. It comes from an email, a domain, and finally IP addresses. Now I know the technical details are lacking, and they obviously need to account for offenders that fix their stuff, but I'm just trying to illustrate that it is do-able. The above is for email spam. Content spam is a little bit different, and would step on quite a few toes. I view content spam as websites that mirror Wikipedia/SO/GoogleGroups for example. Or sites that simply fill their pages with garbage, referral links, URL's to game search-engine rankings, etc. Again, start by revoking the worst offende's domain ownership. Eventually, you'll be able to get rid of domain-squatters as well because it invariably means that they have to put meaningful content on their site and not useless junk. So it's a use it properly, or lose it sort of situation. The above is just not very easy, and it'll cost ICANN registration fees with seemingly no ROI. But that's a problem with ICANN. Registration fees started off as a way to prevent spamming and everyone snatching up all domains, but it's quickly turned in to a revenue cow for ICANN. They're trying to have their cake and eat it at the same time. Either they're a non-profit government/UN organization and function for the public good. Or they're a for-profit entity and they need to have their MONOPOLY status/powers revoked.
augustocallejas 13y ago
I'm surprised that I don't see .app, which is a gTLD I would consider buying a domain name under.
- adventured 13y ago
  Did Google acquire that? Or did they officially pull their filing? http://domainnamewire.com/2013/03/07/google-says-it-will-make-app-blog-cloud-and-search-tlds-open/ http://domainnamewire.com/2013/03/07/google-says-it-will-mak... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/09/google_rejigs_dot_app_gtld/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/09/google_rejigs_dot_ap...
Gustomaximus 13y ago
I like the gTLD opening up but the pricing bothers me for 2 reasons; It's closed off access for ordinary people and businesses at $180k+ setup pricing & $30k+ per year maintenance. Common access for anyone is a brilliant feature of the internet where anyone can hang out their shingle on equal terms. Making parts of domain ownership inaccessible goes against the spirit of the internet in my view. These prices seem to have no reflection to cost, so really are a money grab, and holding anyone with a brand to hostage. Companies will feel pressured to grab brand names while they see how their usage plays out over coming years. It feels a bit extortionate.
- danudey 13y ago
  Common people can't afford the required infrastructure to host a gTLD, getting requests from all over the world. Especially if it gets popular, it'll be pretty expensive to get into.
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    True, but that's a reason not to be so free with them in the first place. I see a lot of wannabe-monopolists in this list, eg getting a .actor domain is easily going to be a must-have for anyone who works in film/TV/theater so issuing a TLD for that is basically granting a license to tax that entire profession. I originally thought this was a good idea when I thought these new TLDs were going to be trickled out in an orderly fashion. As it is, it looks very much like a land grab that only rich participants can take part in. I predict the resulting balkanization of the namespace is going to lead to a collapse of the web within a decade, in the same way that Archie and Veronica eventually fell victim to their own complexity and were replaced by something more accessible.
    - icebraining 13y ago
      getting a .actor domain is easily going to be a must-have for anyone who works in film/TV/theater I'm sure the applicants think the same, but I'm completely unconvinced of that. People have trouble using .info and such already. My guess is that most such TLDs will be dead on arrival; most people don't even type domains nowadays, they search and use links. Having a good Facebook path is probably more important for most people than any domain will ever be.
nmrm 13y ago
I found a full(?) list of gtlds as well as other "top-level suffixes" here: https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat I found this via the Chromium source code (search term gtld). Specifically, https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/net/base/registry_controlled_domains/registry_controlled_domain.h&sq=package:chromium&type=cs&l=126&rcl=1398070747 https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/n...
- darkhorn 13y ago
  .ninja is not in the list, yet.
turnersr 13y ago
The data in csv form can be found at https://gist.github.com/turnersr/11163058#file-gtlds-csv https://gist.github.com/turnersr/11163058#file-gtlds-csv . Here are the registries and the number of strings that were assigned. I'm only showing the ones with a count above one. The rest are at https://gist.github.com/turnersr/11163058#file-registry-counts https://gist.github.com/turnersr/11163058#file-registry-coun... . Uniregistry, Corp. 9 ['COUNTRY', 'CHRISTMAS', 'PICS', 'PHOTO', 'GIFT', 'LINK', 'GUITARS', 'SEXY', 'TATTOO'] Afilias Limited 8 ['BLACK', 'MEET', '\xe7\xa7\xbb\xe5\x8a\xa8 (xn--6frz82g) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "mobile"', 'BLUE', 'KIM', 'PINK', 'RED', 'SHIKSHA'] United TLD Holdco Ltd. 7 ['DEMOCRAT', 'SOCIAL', 'MODA', 'DANCE', 'IMMOBILIEN', 'KAUFEN', 'NINJA'] United TLD Holdco, Ltd. 7 ['ROCKS', 'CONSULTING', 'HAUS', 'PUB', 'ACTOR', 'REVIEWS', 'FUTBOL'] Top Level Domain Holdings Limited 6 ['VODKA', 'COOKING', 'RODEO', 'HORSE', 'FISHING', 'MIAMI'] Public Interest Registry 4 ['\xe6\x9c\xba\xe6\x9e\x84 (xn--nqv7f) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "agencies/institutions"', '\xe0\xa4\xb8\xe0\xa4\x82\xe0\xa4\x97\xe0\xa4\xa0\xe0\xa4\xa8 (xn--i1b6b1a6a2e) \xe2\x80\x93 Hindi for "organization/sangathana"', '\xe7\xbb\x84\xe7\xbb\x87\xe6\x9c\xba\xe6\x9e\x84 (xn--nqv7fs00ema) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "organization"', '\xd0\xbe\xd1\x80\xd0\xb3 (xn--c1avg) \xe2\x80\x93 Russian for "organization/org"'] GMO Registry, Inc. 3 ['YOKOHAMA', 'TOKYO', 'NAGOYA'] CORE Association 3 ['\xd8\xa8\xd8\xa7\xd8\xb2\xd8\xa7\xd8\xb1 (xn--mgbab2bd) \xe2\x80\x93 Arabic for "bazaar/bazar"', '\xd0\xbe\xd0\xbd\xd0\xbb\xd0\xb0\xd0\xb9\xd0\xbd (xn--80asehdb) \xe2\x80\x93 Russian for "online"', '\xd1\x81\xd0\xb0\xd0\xb9\xd1\x82 (xn--80aswg) \xe2\x80\x93 Russian for "site"'] Top Level Design, LLC 2 ['INK', 'WIKI'] BusinessRalliart Inc. 2 ['RYUKYU', 'OKINAWA'] Punto 2012 Sociedad Anonima Promotora de Inversion de Capital Variable 2 ['REST', 'BAR'] NetCologne Gesellschaft für Telekommunikation mbH 2 ['COLOGNE', 'KOELN'] XYZ.COM, LLC 2 ['COLLEGE', 'XYZ'] China Organizational Name Administration Center 2 ['\xe5\x85\xac\xe7\x9b\x8a (xn--55qw42g) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "charity"', '\xe6\x94\xbf\xe5\x8a\xa1 (xn--zfr164b) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "government"'] I-REGISTRY Ltd. Niederlassung Deutschland 2 ['RICH', 'ONL'] TLD Registry Limited 2 ['\xe4\xb8\xad\xe6\x96\x87\xe7\xbd\x91 (xn--fiq228c5hs) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "Chinese network"', '\xe5\x9c\xa8\xe7\xba\xbf (xn--3ds443g) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "online"'] Koko Station, LLC 2 ['VISION', 'VILLAS'] Monolith Registry LLC 2 ['VOTE', 'VOTO'] Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences (China Internet Information Center) 2 ['\xe7\xbd\x91\xe7\xbb\x9c (xn--io0a7i) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "network"', '\xe5\x85\xac\xe5\x8f\xb8 (xn--55qx5d) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "company"']
hrktb 13y ago
At this point, doesn't it make more sense to have fully arbitrary strings as domain names, and use something like the last 2 characters to map to the appropriate top level entity ? The explosion of top-level domains doesn't seem to serve any real practical purpose except moving money around, and moving to a better system altogether would be the logical step. Or does it solve any technical problem ?
- icebraining 13y ago
  That system would require a complete revamp of the DNS protocol. Adding new TLDs, on the other hand, is perfectly compatible with existing software.
adventured 13y ago
Mostly I'm curious how Google is going to handle this. Specifically will they automatically favor, over time, results for eg .paris, if that tld acquires enough quality rankings for paris related keywords. And how will Google decide what's a local vs global tld (again, eg .paris).
davidu 13y ago
Navigation has evolved from the address bar to the search bar. DNS is a core component for transport of most content on the Internet, but for consumers, it's no longer the prima facie form of navigation. This is non-additive, imho. And a poor use of ICANN resources.
- lnanek2 13y ago
  Technically, they are probably making a ton of money on it, so I guess you can't say it is using resources net...
  - davidu 13y ago
    mental calories, not dollars. ICANN is spending all their resources on it and not focusing elsewhere in their operations. Yes, it's making money. But budgets were already high. Good people (mehmet, etc.) have left.
nathanvanfleet 13y ago
Something like this will happen and then something will happen to finally eliminate top level domains in the first place or at least remove them from display.
Kequc 13y ago
I'd like to see a lot more two character or short non-specific domain names. Personally, I need ".op" but just for general use I feel everyone would benefit from "theirna.me" style domains. In place of "theirname.food" or similar. Is this just a stylistic choice on my part? Or possibly it would be too difficult to manage on the part of the registrars.
- jfim 13y ago
  Two character ones are for countries, though. What would you do if a private entity owns ".op" and a hypothetical country of Opzerkistan declares independence? As for domain hacks, I think many laypeople just enter "something.com" without thinking too much. Remember whitehouse.com[1], in the 90's? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehouse.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehouse.com
  - Kequc 13y ago
    I suppose the same thing that would happen if there were two independent countries that start with "Op"... right now there is no ".op" domain and that makes me sad.
    - jfim 13y ago
      True, but they would simply assign them different two letter TLDs. For example, compare Montenegro (.me), Macao (.mo), Mongolia (.mn), Malta (.mt), Madagascar (.mg), Mauritania (.mr), etc. I can understand how it would be frustrating, though. For a long time, the TLD for my last name (two letter last name) wouldn't allow second level registration.
- icebraining 13y ago
  .me has been around for a long time, it's the ccTLD for Montenegro: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.me
dk8996 13y ago
Where can I start registering name with the new LTD? I am really interested in .foo and .ing
nkozyra 13y ago
The long wait for clownpenis.fart is over!
- Sivart13 13y ago
  Seems to me the closest we can get from this is clownpenis.farm
meisterbrendan 13y ago
I wonder how long it will take for users to get into the habit of using TLDs other than their country default.
anigbrowl 13y ago
Buyers of .ninja domains are going to be surprised when everyone else pre-emptively blocks them.
- mricon 13y ago
  Clearly something only the pirates would do.
lnanek2 13y ago
Interesting where an Inc. company now owns a geographic location, like .OKINAWA
Donzo 13y ago
It will be interesting to see how this turns out. Some of these TLDs will prove to be quite lucrative, others less. Ultimately, this will benefit site owners. Most traffic may be derived from search, but direct traffic is not to be discounted. It is good that people will be able to get memorable domain names. Unfortunately, it will be some time until the public is appropriately trained. Waves of traffic will be lost or misdirected with people mistakenly adding .com to the URL.
jheitmann 13y ago
While I think this whole thing is a useless namespace land grab, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that there is one slightly useful new TLD: http://www.atgron.wed http://www.atgron.wed They're selling .wed domains cheap for the first couple of registered years, but then charging tens of thousands of dollars per year after 2 years. This is a smart way to create a short-term use namespace.
marincounty 13y ago
I heard icann charges-- something like $6.50 a domain. Icann seems to have more money than they can spend. Maybe they should lower the price they demand for each domain? I understand they need to regulate this industry, but they appear to be making a bit to much money? I never blamed Godaddy for gouging customers. I knew icann demanded their cut before any profit to godaddy. (I'm no fan of Godaddy, but forced to use them because they seem cheaper--if you know how to cancel their money making tatics, like constantly changing renewals to 2 years at full price. And his stupid commercials. If you do get his .99 cent domains, I think you are allowed two. If you use a different ip address sometimes you can get more.)
legutierr 13y ago
It's been a while since I've read anything about this. Are new applications still being accepted, or are these simply approvals of applications that were submitted some time ago, through a process that is now closed?
- M2Ys4U 13y ago
  The latter.
azinman2 13y ago
CITIC Group, NeuStar Inc., Samsung? Why are these companies having TLDs, and ICANN approving it? There's zero logic to all of this!
- r00fus 13y ago
  Clearly $$ > Logic. I think that's something you learn in business math class.
- icebraining 13y ago
  Why not?
shittyanalogy 13y ago
What happens if you register a domain and do business at some gTLD and the company that owns the gTLD goes out of business?
- Ellipsis753 13y ago
  I'd assume you'd lose your domain. If you're lucky someone else might pick up the gTLD and you could probably keep it then.
jonemo 13y ago
NPR's Planet Money podcast recently had an episode on this titled "The Wild West Of The Internet". They take a pretty neutral view, but I found the interviews with people who own some of these TLDs now interesting. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/04/16/303735386/episode-532-the-wild-west-of-the-internet http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/04/16/303735386/episode-...
jmnicolas 13y ago
VODKA, NINJA and GURU my mind is racing with possibilities.
Grue3 13y ago
".онлайн"? ".сайт"? Those aren't even words in Russian language. Why bother with Cyrillic if you're just going to transliterate English terms?
- darkhorn 13y ago
  not switching between keyboard layouts constantly?
- jarman 13y ago
  They are legitimate words. It's called loanword
  - Grue3 13y ago
    What part of speech is "онлайн" then? I'll give you that "сайт" is a technical loan-word, though I still can't come up with a situation where something.сайт would make sense. Of course it's a goddamn site, it's the Internet after all.
    - jarman 13y ago
      Saw it used as adjective and noun, with multiple meanings, akin to usage in english language. And I don't see much sense in '.сайт' too, but I don't see much of it in most new gTLDs.
Ellipsis753 13y ago
Whenever I see new top-level domains I can't help but think that the internet would probably be nicer without any top-level domains at all. You can still always buy a sub-domain from someone. Failing that, does anyone know if any of these top-level domains are to be sold cheaper? ".cheap" is actually not any cheaper than normal but a ".end" or something which cost only $2 a year might be pretty cool. Of course it'd be even easier to swat but you shouldn't have any problems if you use a long domain name.

105 points by darkhorn 13y ago

>Over 1,300 new names or "strings" could become available in the next few years. I'm the only one that doesn't like this? Having more domains it's nice, but having so many just feels overwhelming. I'm also sure that some/many of those will be completely ignored by everyone, and thus making me wonder why introduce them in the first place.

Einstalbert 13y ago
I would love to take the sting out of someone getting the one or two "primary" domains for an IP, even something generic a concept as "grow.com" or something along those lines, and splitting it up so that just about anybody can get a specific flavor in. "No, we're not grow.com, but we're also not grow.xxx or grow.medical, we're grow.coffee!"
AnthonyMouse 13y ago
The way they've chosen which TLDs to issue is kind of lame. The entire concept of some company name as a TLD is ridiculous. It's just namespace pollution. Using just the TLD without any subdomain is going to invoke bugs in old software or be confused with a search term in the address bar, and using 'www.chase' instead of 'chase.com' is pointless and confusing. What they should have done instead is created a bunch of TLDs for various different industries. Having 'chase.bank' and 'ford.cars' would have made a lot more sense.
- nightcracker 13y ago
  'www.chase' would be equally valid as 'www.com'. Nothing wrong with it.

acjohnson55 13y ago

Wow, just looking at the list so far, it appears the squatting has already begun in earnest. It's the dot-com land grab all over again.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
marshray 13y ago
But this time around they raised the application fee by three or four orders of magnitude to make it more fair.
- PythonicAlpha 13y ago
  Very fair, indeed!

GuiA 13y ago

Lots of LLCs in there. Sounds like companies set up mostly for the prospect of short term profits, e.g.: COLLEGE >> XYZ.COM, LLC UNIVERSITY >> Little Station, LLC VODKA >> Top Level Domain Holdings Limited (those guys have quite a few such as "COOKING" and "FISHING") It used to be that you had to squat the web one domain name at the time, now you can just squat a whole TLD!

mcphage 13y ago
> Lots of LLCs in there. Sounds like companies set up mostly for the prospect of short term profits I suspect they're mostly shell companies.
duskwuff 13y ago
Many of the LLCs are shell companies. In particular, basically every instance of "Adjective Noun, LLC" (e.g, "Foggy Sky, LLC", "Little Station, LLC", "Baxter Hill, LLC"...) is a shell owned by donuts.co, and "Charleston Road Registry" is a shell owned by Google!
- nandhp 13y ago
  .FOO as well. See http://www.google.com/registry/ http://www.google.com/registry/
  - Danieru 13y ago
    They let Google have .ads! I think that is a bad idea.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
justincormack 13y ago
I saw the business plan for one of these companies, registered in Gibralter. Not sure if it got the ones it wanted. They were looking for investors on hugely optimistic takeup figures.
13y ago

ama729 13y ago

If someone else is wondering who is "Charleston Road Registry" it's actually .. Google. http://www.internetnews.com/blog/skerner/who-is-charleston-road-registry-the-leading-gtld-applicant.html http://www.internetnews.com/blog/skerner/who-is-charleston-r... Also, it seem the sartup Donuts[0] is snatching a lot of domains using shell companies[1]. [0]http://icannwiki.com/index.php/Donuts http://icannwiki.com/index.php/Donuts [1] http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.voyage http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.voyage http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.camera http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.camera http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.guru http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.guru

devindotcom 13y ago
You just inadvertently created a new portmanteau for sartorial startups!
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
joliv 13y ago
For the lazy, Charleston Road Registry has filed for the strings SOY and みんな, Japanese for "everyone."
- brianbreslin 13y ago
  soy is effectively AM in spanish. yo.soy/google
  - timv 13y ago
    So, how long until I can register yo.no.soy/marinero ?

dennyferra 13y ago

Is that $185,000 per evaluation for a gTLD? Are there other costs involved?

sjtgraham 13y ago

A bank controlling its own TLD might make phishing attempts easier to spot for the less technically literate.

Goopplesoft 13y ago
Are you required to sell out domains under a gTLD? It'd be interesting to create some sort of must-be-a-sub-entity TLDs like ".bank" which requires it members to be banks (similar to .edu and .gov). But I can't imagine any entity but ICANN itself managing that in a 'fair' manor.
- cenhyperion 13y ago
  I know ".ngo" is planning on being released at some point this year and will (supposedly) only be available to registered NGOs
  - waps 13y ago
    It's like a job application filter. Start working for a .int company, only pay 10% income tax (but still get all benefits everyone else gets, sometimes more).
- vesinisa 13y ago
  The registration limitations can be arbitrary. For example, I was excited to see that my city had signed up for a domain, but in the application they say the domain will be closed from public use and that they will delegate names only to official departments of the city. But I guess if you are planning to make a commercial operation around a gTLD, its best to let anyone register.

msvan 13y ago

Many of these gTLDs sound exotic today, but I bet 10 years from now they will be nothing special. I for one welcome it, if only to dethrone the dot com. It doesn't make sense for us all to try and squeeze into the same limited gTLD space. Perhaps this will be the most efficient way of killing off domain squatters, by flooding the market with viable domains. It's just a matter of time before half of all links submitted to HN end with ".js".

duskwuff 13y ago
Two-letter TLDs are reserved for ccTLDs - they're assigned based on the ISO country code (ISO 3166-1) of the country. As there is currently no country with the country code "JS", the TLD cannot be assigned.
- nmrm 13y ago
  Sounds like it's time to found a new nation-state. National exports will include whatever I happen to sell on Ebay that year, and millions of dollars worth of domain names :-)
Tloewald 13y ago
So far a whole buttload of TLDs have failed to dethrone .com. I suspect adding a huge collection of new TLDs might actually make .com _more_ valuable. After all, if you hear about some company or product, are you going to guess foobarbiz.randomstring? Heck, most browsers will guess foobarbiz.com for you.
- lstamour 13y ago
  No wonder Google wants in: (a) they can profit off their worldwide infrastructure and (b) everyone will have to use Google to figure out which .foo or .bar they need! /cue maniacal laugh
tripzilch 13y ago
> It's just a matter of time before half of all links submitted to HN end with ".js". you forgot .css .2048 and .flappy

est 13y ago

Need an auto reg-exp generator from that damn page.

nwh 13y ago
https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat
- voltagex_ 13y ago
  Any idea why people would want their tld removed from that? e.g. nsw.gov.au
  - timv 13y ago
    My guess would be that they want to be able to share cookies across their sub-domains. That file is saying that we should effectively treat: education.vic.gov.au and courts.vic.gov.au as being independent entities that happen to both use the "vic.gov.au" domain, but otherwise have nothing in common (as far as same-origin policies go) But fairtrading.nsw.gov.au and housing.nsw.gov.au as being separate sub-domains operated by the same entity (in this case the NSW gov't) It's certainly easier for those who operate site on that domain if they can implement single sign on, and cross-(sub)-domain resource loading without needing to jump through hoops like CORS. However, since nsw.gov.au is also farmed out to every local council in the state as well as every government department, it's putting the security of your cookies into the hands a lot of organisations over which you have very limited control.
  - nwh 13y ago
    Really don't try to guess our governments actions. You'll end up broken.

hiphopyo 13y ago

Wish there was like a mob that goes around beating up squatters.

zo1 13y ago
Oh so squatters are bad, but the people that enable them aren't? What they have now is a devious double-standard system. It starts off with "first-come, first-serve" and then when money is involved and some large/well-established entity cries foul, they then change the rules to be "more-money, first-serve". Now don't get me wrong, I think domain squatting is a horrible, horrible practice. But we really need to solve the root of the problem, and that is a greedy ICANN that enables domain-registrars, and itself, to double-dip the cake for profit!

PythonicAlpha 13y ago

New gold-rush ahead? The list feels to me at the first look very similar to the patent system -- everybody is just pitching "their" claims. First come, first money, first served. The others will stay with the "pack": <longname>.com or <evenlongername>.de.

hrktb 13y ago
I feel this is kind of pointless though. As of now, most people will first do a search on parts of the domain to go to the right site; having more TLD around won't reduce this behavior.
- PythonicAlpha 13y ago
  But some reason seems to exist, that makes all those companies paying a stack of money. Even if all internet users do so, I think the companies trust to get some credibility by owning such domains.
robryan 13y ago
If anything this might discourage picking up a lot of domain names. Instead of the somewhat standard practise of buying your name under say 5 top level domains with all these inclusions most companies will probably decide it isn't worth it to buy their name on every available top level.

jboynyc 13y ago

Since in addition to .EDU we will soon have .EDUCATION, .UNIVERSITY and .COLLEGE, Monash University was smart to just get .MONASH.

HenryMc 13y ago
http://about.monash/ http://about.monash/
- daturkel 13y ago
  So is the schema for these branded tlds supposed to change from our current name.tld/page/subpage.html to page.name/subpage.html? That strikes me as a huge waste of time setting up subdomains for what are effectively just pages.
  - chrismorgan 13y ago
    As an example of how it can be handled, Monash has https://my.monash.edu.au/ https://my.monash.edu.au/ which is already known by the name my.monash; I expect that they will shift it to https://my.monash/ https://my.monash/ in the fairly near future. What it ends up boiling down to for Monash University is that you can drop the .edu, .edu.au or .edu.my part. Oh, and you get to cough up a decent amount of dough for the endeavour (for the TLD application, for TLD maintenance and for software systems and such).
- darkhorn 13y ago
  > We even beat Google to the punch.

techscruggs 13y ago

Can someone explain to me why they don't just open up every possible string as a TLD?

eli 13y ago
Isn't that pretty much what they're doing? Are there strings that somebody wanted to pay to register but ICANN declined?
vacri 13y ago
They pretty much have - but you need to apply for it, and be able to manage the work of a TLD registrar.
nmrm 13y ago
It looks like there's at least some administration involved in the assignment. See the notes section of this table: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains#ICANN-era_generic_top-level_domains http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_doma... For instance, if you register for .wed and take longer than 2 years to get married, both your fiance AND your registrar will be angry with you.
cheepin 13y ago
DNS I'd imagine. Traditionally, the root DNS servers points to TLD servers. It doesn't really make sense for every possible string to be a TLD.
vesinisa 13y ago
They are making some serious money from this scheme. Google alone has spent $18.6 million on registration fees of its 101 different new gTLD.
- sneak 13y ago
  Fucking up the whole internet for only a few hundred million dollars seems really incredibly short-sighted to me.

maaku 13y ago

Am I the only one disgusted by this?

zo1 13y ago
Nope, we're with you on this one. It's a flat-out money grab. From an institution that we expect to keep the internet running. Great idea, right? You know, instead, they could fix the damn email and content spamming rampantly going on the internet. But no, those things don't give ICANN yearly profits. I guess they fail to realize that spam-detection is one of the main things behind Gmail's phenomenal success since its inception.
- icebraining 13y ago
  You know, instead, they could fix the damn email and content spamming rampantly going on the internet. How exactly could they achieve that?
  - zo1 13y ago
    First they could start by revoking domain ownership if spam comes from there. If it keeps persisting and from multiple different IP addresses from the same block, start taking IP blocks away until it stops. Spam email doesn't just appear out of the ether. It comes from an email, a domain, and finally IP addresses. Now I know the technical details are lacking, and they obviously need to account for offenders that fix their stuff, but I'm just trying to illustrate that it is do-able. The above is for email spam. Content spam is a little bit different, and would step on quite a few toes. I view content spam as websites that mirror Wikipedia/SO/GoogleGroups for example. Or sites that simply fill their pages with garbage, referral links, URL's to game search-engine rankings, etc. Again, start by revoking the worst offende's domain ownership. Eventually, you'll be able to get rid of domain-squatters as well because it invariably means that they have to put meaningful content on their site and not useless junk. So it's a use it properly, or lose it sort of situation. The above is just not very easy, and it'll cost ICANN registration fees with seemingly no ROI. But that's a problem with ICANN. Registration fees started off as a way to prevent spamming and everyone snatching up all domains, but it's quickly turned in to a revenue cow for ICANN. They're trying to have their cake and eat it at the same time. Either they're a non-profit government/UN organization and function for the public good. Or they're a for-profit entity and they need to have their MONOPOLY status/powers revoked.

augustocallejas 13y ago

I'm surprised that I don't see .app, which is a gTLD I would consider buying a domain name under.

adventured 13y ago
Did Google acquire that? Or did they officially pull their filing? http://domainnamewire.com/2013/03/07/google-says-it-will-make-app-blog-cloud-and-search-tlds-open/ http://domainnamewire.com/2013/03/07/google-says-it-will-mak... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/09/google_rejigs_dot_app_gtld/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/09/google_rejigs_dot_ap...

Gustomaximus 13y ago

I like the gTLD opening up but the pricing bothers me for 2 reasons; It's closed off access for ordinary people and businesses at $180k+ setup pricing & $30k+ per year maintenance. Common access for anyone is a brilliant feature of the internet where anyone can hang out their shingle on equal terms. Making parts of domain ownership inaccessible goes against the spirit of the internet in my view. These prices seem to have no reflection to cost, so really are a money grab, and holding anyone with a brand to hostage. Companies will feel pressured to grab brand names while they see how their usage plays out over coming years. It feels a bit extortionate.

danudey 13y ago
Common people can't afford the required infrastructure to host a gTLD, getting requests from all over the world. Especially if it gets popular, it'll be pretty expensive to get into.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  True, but that's a reason not to be so free with them in the first place. I see a lot of wannabe-monopolists in this list, eg getting a .actor domain is easily going to be a must-have for anyone who works in film/TV/theater so issuing a TLD for that is basically granting a license to tax that entire profession. I originally thought this was a good idea when I thought these new TLDs were going to be trickled out in an orderly fashion. As it is, it looks very much like a land grab that only rich participants can take part in. I predict the resulting balkanization of the namespace is going to lead to a collapse of the web within a decade, in the same way that Archie and Veronica eventually fell victim to their own complexity and were replaced by something more accessible.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    getting a .actor domain is easily going to be a must-have for anyone who works in film/TV/theater I'm sure the applicants think the same, but I'm completely unconvinced of that. People have trouble using .info and such already. My guess is that most such TLDs will be dead on arrival; most people don't even type domains nowadays, they search and use links. Having a good Facebook path is probably more important for most people than any domain will ever be.

nmrm 13y ago

I found a full(?) list of gtlds as well as other "top-level suffixes" here: https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat I found this via the Chromium source code (search term gtld). Specifically, https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/net/base/registry_controlled_domains/registry_controlled_domain.h&sq=package:chromium&type=cs&l=126&rcl=1398070747 https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/n...

darkhorn 13y ago
.ninja is not in the list, yet.

turnersr 13y ago

The data in csv form can be found at https://gist.github.com/turnersr/11163058#file-gtlds-csv https://gist.github.com/turnersr/11163058#file-gtlds-csv . Here are the registries and the number of strings that were assigned. I'm only showing the ones with a count above one. The rest are at https://gist.github.com/turnersr/11163058#file-registry-counts https://gist.github.com/turnersr/11163058#file-registry-coun... . Uniregistry, Corp. 9 ['COUNTRY', 'CHRISTMAS', 'PICS', 'PHOTO', 'GIFT', 'LINK', 'GUITARS', 'SEXY', 'TATTOO'] Afilias Limited 8 ['BLACK', 'MEET', '\xe7\xa7\xbb\xe5\x8a\xa8 (xn--6frz82g) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "mobile"', 'BLUE', 'KIM', 'PINK', 'RED', 'SHIKSHA'] United TLD Holdco Ltd. 7 ['DEMOCRAT', 'SOCIAL', 'MODA', 'DANCE', 'IMMOBILIEN', 'KAUFEN', 'NINJA'] United TLD Holdco, Ltd. 7 ['ROCKS', 'CONSULTING', 'HAUS', 'PUB', 'ACTOR', 'REVIEWS', 'FUTBOL'] Top Level Domain Holdings Limited 6 ['VODKA', 'COOKING', 'RODEO', 'HORSE', 'FISHING', 'MIAMI'] Public Interest Registry 4 ['\xe6\x9c\xba\xe6\x9e\x84 (xn--nqv7f) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "agencies/institutions"', '\xe0\xa4\xb8\xe0\xa4\x82\xe0\xa4\x97\xe0\xa4\xa0\xe0\xa4\xa8 (xn--i1b6b1a6a2e) \xe2\x80\x93 Hindi for "organization/sangathana"', '\xe7\xbb\x84\xe7\xbb\x87\xe6\x9c\xba\xe6\x9e\x84 (xn--nqv7fs00ema) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "organization"', '\xd0\xbe\xd1\x80\xd0\xb3 (xn--c1avg) \xe2\x80\x93 Russian for "organization/org"'] GMO Registry, Inc. 3 ['YOKOHAMA', 'TOKYO', 'NAGOYA'] CORE Association 3 ['\xd8\xa8\xd8\xa7\xd8\xb2\xd8\xa7\xd8\xb1 (xn--mgbab2bd) \xe2\x80\x93 Arabic for "bazaar/bazar"', '\xd0\xbe\xd0\xbd\xd0\xbb\xd0\xb0\xd0\xb9\xd0\xbd (xn--80asehdb) \xe2\x80\x93 Russian for "online"', '\xd1\x81\xd0\xb0\xd0\xb9\xd1\x82 (xn--80aswg) \xe2\x80\x93 Russian for "site"'] Top Level Design, LLC 2 ['INK', 'WIKI'] BusinessRalliart Inc. 2 ['RYUKYU', 'OKINAWA'] Punto 2012 Sociedad Anonima Promotora de Inversion de Capital Variable 2 ['REST', 'BAR'] NetCologne Gesellschaft für Telekommunikation mbH 2 ['COLOGNE', 'KOELN'] XYZ.COM, LLC 2 ['COLLEGE', 'XYZ'] China Organizational Name Administration Center 2 ['\xe5\x85\xac\xe7\x9b\x8a (xn--55qw42g) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "charity"', '\xe6\x94\xbf\xe5\x8a\xa1 (xn--zfr164b) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "government"'] I-REGISTRY Ltd. Niederlassung Deutschland 2 ['RICH', 'ONL'] TLD Registry Limited 2 ['\xe4\xb8\xad\xe6\x96\x87\xe7\xbd\x91 (xn--fiq228c5hs) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "Chinese network"', '\xe5\x9c\xa8\xe7\xba\xbf (xn--3ds443g) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "online"'] Koko Station, LLC 2 ['VISION', 'VILLAS'] Monolith Registry LLC 2 ['VOTE', 'VOTO'] Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences (China Internet Information Center) 2 ['\xe7\xbd\x91\xe7\xbb\x9c (xn--io0a7i) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "network"', '\xe5\x85\xac\xe5\x8f\xb8 (xn--55qx5d) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "company"']

hrktb 13y ago

At this point, doesn't it make more sense to have fully arbitrary strings as domain names, and use something like the last 2 characters to map to the appropriate top level entity ? The explosion of top-level domains doesn't seem to serve any real practical purpose except moving money around, and moving to a better system altogether would be the logical step. Or does it solve any technical problem ?

icebraining 13y ago
That system would require a complete revamp of the DNS protocol. Adding new TLDs, on the other hand, is perfectly compatible with existing software.

adventured 13y ago

Mostly I'm curious how Google is going to handle this. Specifically will they automatically favor, over time, results for eg .paris, if that tld acquires enough quality rankings for paris related keywords. And how will Google decide what's a local vs global tld (again, eg .paris).

davidu 13y ago

Navigation has evolved from the address bar to the search bar. DNS is a core component for transport of most content on the Internet, but for consumers, it's no longer the prima facie form of navigation. This is non-additive, imho. And a poor use of ICANN resources.

lnanek2 13y ago
Technically, they are probably making a ton of money on it, so I guess you can't say it is using resources net...
- davidu 13y ago
  mental calories, not dollars. ICANN is spending all their resources on it and not focusing elsewhere in their operations. Yes, it's making money. But budgets were already high. Good people (mehmet, etc.) have left.

nathanvanfleet 13y ago

Something like this will happen and then something will happen to finally eliminate top level domains in the first place or at least remove them from display.

Kequc 13y ago

I'd like to see a lot more two character or short non-specific domain names. Personally, I need ".op" but just for general use I feel everyone would benefit from "theirna.me" style domains. In place of "theirname.food" or similar. Is this just a stylistic choice on my part? Or possibly it would be too difficult to manage on the part of the registrars.

jfim 13y ago
Two character ones are for countries, though. What would you do if a private entity owns ".op" and a hypothetical country of Opzerkistan declares independence? As for domain hacks, I think many laypeople just enter "something.com" without thinking too much. Remember whitehouse.com[1], in the 90's? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehouse.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehouse.com
- Kequc 13y ago
  I suppose the same thing that would happen if there were two independent countries that start with "Op"... right now there is no ".op" domain and that makes me sad.
  - jfim 13y ago
    True, but they would simply assign them different two letter TLDs. For example, compare Montenegro (.me), Macao (.mo), Mongolia (.mn), Malta (.mt), Madagascar (.mg), Mauritania (.mr), etc. I can understand how it would be frustrating, though. For a long time, the TLD for my last name (two letter last name) wouldn't allow second level registration.
icebraining 13y ago
.me has been around for a long time, it's the ccTLD for Montenegro: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.me

dk8996 13y ago

Where can I start registering name with the new LTD? I am really interested in .foo and .ing

nkozyra 13y ago

The long wait for clownpenis.fart is over!

Sivart13 13y ago
Seems to me the closest we can get from this is clownpenis.farm

meisterbrendan 13y ago

I wonder how long it will take for users to get into the habit of using TLDs other than their country default.

anigbrowl 13y ago

Buyers of .ninja domains are going to be surprised when everyone else pre-emptively blocks them.

mricon 13y ago
Clearly something only the pirates would do.

lnanek2 13y ago

Interesting where an Inc. company now owns a geographic location, like .OKINAWA

Donzo 13y ago

It will be interesting to see how this turns out. Some of these TLDs will prove to be quite lucrative, others less. Ultimately, this will benefit site owners. Most traffic may be derived from search, but direct traffic is not to be discounted. It is good that people will be able to get memorable domain names. Unfortunately, it will be some time until the public is appropriately trained. Waves of traffic will be lost or misdirected with people mistakenly adding .com to the URL.

jheitmann 13y ago

While I think this whole thing is a useless namespace land grab, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that there is one slightly useful new TLD: http://www.atgron.wed http://www.atgron.wed They're selling .wed domains cheap for the first couple of registered years, but then charging tens of thousands of dollars per year after 2 years. This is a smart way to create a short-term use namespace.

marincounty 13y ago

I heard icann charges-- something like $6.50 a domain. Icann seems to have more money than they can spend. Maybe they should lower the price they demand for each domain? I understand they need to regulate this industry, but they appear to be making a bit to much money? I never blamed Godaddy for gouging customers. I knew icann demanded their cut before any profit to godaddy. (I'm no fan of Godaddy, but forced to use them because they seem cheaper--if you know how to cancel their money making tatics, like constantly changing renewals to 2 years at full price. And his stupid commercials. If you do get his .99 cent domains, I think you are allowed two. If you use a different ip address sometimes you can get more.)

legutierr 13y ago

It's been a while since I've read anything about this. Are new applications still being accepted, or are these simply approvals of applications that were submitted some time ago, through a process that is now closed?

M2Ys4U 13y ago
The latter.

azinman2 13y ago

CITIC Group, NeuStar Inc., Samsung? Why are these companies having TLDs, and ICANN approving it? There's zero logic to all of this!

r00fus 13y ago
Clearly $$ > Logic. I think that's something you learn in business math class.
icebraining 13y ago
Why not?

shittyanalogy 13y ago

What happens if you register a domain and do business at some gTLD and the company that owns the gTLD goes out of business?

Ellipsis753 13y ago
I'd assume you'd lose your domain. If you're lucky someone else might pick up the gTLD and you could probably keep it then.

jonemo 13y ago

NPR's Planet Money podcast recently had an episode on this titled "The Wild West Of The Internet". They take a pretty neutral view, but I found the interviews with people who own some of these TLDs now interesting. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/04/16/303735386/episode-532-the-wild-west-of-the-internet http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/04/16/303735386/episode-...

jmnicolas 13y ago

VODKA, NINJA and GURU my mind is racing with possibilities.

Grue3 13y ago

".онлайн"? ".сайт"? Those aren't even words in Russian language. Why bother with Cyrillic if you're just going to transliterate English terms?

darkhorn 13y ago
not switching between keyboard layouts constantly?
jarman 13y ago
They are legitimate words. It's called loanword
- Grue3 13y ago
  What part of speech is "онлайн" then? I'll give you that "сайт" is a technical loan-word, though I still can't come up with a situation where something.сайт would make sense. Of course it's a goddamn site, it's the Internet after all.
  - jarman 13y ago
    Saw it used as adjective and noun, with multiple meanings, akin to usage in english language. And I don't see much sense in '.сайт' too, but I don't see much of it in most new gTLDs.

Ellipsis753 13y ago

Whenever I see new top-level domains I can't help but think that the internet would probably be nicer without any top-level domains at all. You can still always buy a sub-domain from someone. Failing that, does anyone know if any of these top-level domains are to be sold cheaper? ".cheap" is actually not any cheaper than normal but a ".end" or something which cost only $2 a year might be pretty cool. Of course it'd be even easier to swat but you shouldn't have any problems if you use a long domain name.