7 ms·

I am no fan of the search engine company named after a misspelling of a very large number. But nevertheless, in reading this article I immediately felt that I

by bhauer 12y ago

I am no fan of the search engine company named after a misspelling of a very large number. But nevertheless, in reading this article I immediately felt that I had missed something fundamental in my understanding of gTLDs: I had never previously assumed that any of the owners of these gTLDs were under any obligation whatsoever to open them for widespread public domain registrations. Last year, when I argued the gTLD plan was a nefarious money-making scam cooked up by ICANN and large Internet corporations, a central premise of my rant was that Google and the rest of the usual suspects would snatch all of the best gTLDs for their own sites. I suggested that Facebook would probably buy .fb, allowing you to navigate to their site by just typing in something like "w.fb" or maybe just "fb" (I'm not sure if TLDs can resolve directly to a host as second level domains can). I never once thought that Facebook as the owner of .fb would permit you or I to register a subdomain within .fb. My understanding was that all gTLD buyers were left to their own prerogative, be it exclusive use of the gTLD for their properties or leasing of subdomains in the traditional sense ala .com, .net, et al. In all the press coverage I consumed about the gTLD matter last year, I never assimilated a requirement for leasing of subdomains to the public. Google's behavior with .dev is just a sideshow to the main attraction of silliness that is gTLDs.

ttctciyf 12y ago
> I'm not sure of gTLDs can resolve directly to a host as second level domains can I'm pretty sure that "ping pt." used to work in the late 90's - though you had to supply the trailing dot.
- icebraining 12y ago
  There are a few; see RFC 7085: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7085 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7085
- technomancy 12y ago
  Looking up .museum also used to work, but it looks like something has changed.
  - scrollaway 12y ago
    http://to./ http://to./ used to be a url shortener. Now it's just an apache default index.html, but it still works. :)
  - firloop 12y ago
    .museum doesn't work but http://www.museum http://www.museum redirects to www.museum.com
hayksaakian 12y ago
That might be true, but look at .ceo or .luxury you can't buy those domains very cheaply. If google doesn't want you using a .app or any of their gtlds they can simply make them prohobitivly expensive.
- bhauer 12y ago
  Exactly. And to clarify, I very well may have missed something in the gTLD process that expressly requires—or attempted to require—the leasing of subdomains to the public. Although I was familiar enough with gTLDs to decide I was opposed to their creation, I nevertheless have spent little time actually studying gTLD requirements and processes in detail. But even if there is such a requirement for public leasing, as you said above, the cost and process for subdomain registration could be designed by the owner to be prohibitive. I am not joking when I say it not once occurred to me that owners of gTLDs may be required to lease subdomains. I assumed, in fact, that a great deal of them would be used as the exclusive playgrounds of their well-off owners. As far as I can tell, the linked article/blog entry doesn't actually establish that requirement, but I could be wrong.
dekhn 12y ago
The spelling "Google" predates "Googol", and influenced it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Google_and_Snuffy_Smith#Origin_of_.22Google.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Google_and_Snuffy_Smith#...
- bhauer 12y ago
  Funny. News to me! It's not going to stop me from pronouncing the search engine name as "goo-glee" since it still appears in my mind as a misspelling of googol.
  - jeorgun 12y ago
    Which, as the link mentions, it is— just because their (intentional?) misspelling happens to coincide with an earlier form, doesn't mean it isn't a misspelling.
- jnem 12y ago
  I always thought the name was influenced by Nikolai Gogol.
- WorldWideWayne 12y ago
  When I was a kid we would say someone with big eyes had "googly eyes". So, when Google came around I thought it was a reference to something like that (eyes, looking, seeing).
wmf 12y ago
I had never previously assumed that the any of the owners of these gTLDs were under any obligation whatsoever to open them for widespread public domain registrations. OK, but many people (including myself) had the opposite yet equally obvious intuition that ICANN wouldn't allow closed generic TLDs. It was so obvious to me that I didn't bother to check the rules, so now we're in this situation.
- meesterdude 12y ago
  same!
- bhauer 12y ago
  Be that as it may, I am not sure what to do at this point. Had I controlled the Internet at large last year, I would have shut down the gTLD concept straight away as an unfair practice favoring well-healed corporations allowing them to achieve unprecedentedly short domain names while the plebs continued to suffer with second-level domains. I remember hearing that Canon Corporation was going to buy .canon [1]. And to my mind it was clear: they have no intent of selling .canon subdomains. Canon Corporation has no interest in being a domain registrar. They just didn't want other corporations buying and squatting on .canon. It is a land-grab where the price per plot is $185,000. Now that it has come to pass, I figure we'll all just adapt to it. I still don't like gTLDs, but so be it. You and I won't be able to get domains in .dev. So be it. I still have my domains in .com like some crazy old-timer. [1] http://www.canon.com/news/2010/mar16e.html http://www.canon.com/news/2010/mar16e.html
  - wmf 12y ago
    Yes, I've come to the conclusion that there is nothing to be done about this. We can't flip the table because we failed to foresee a loophole. It's probably worth lobbying to change the rules for future gTLDs, though.
    - walterbell 12y ago
      Create a DomainBlock browser plugin to blacklist generic TLDs that are monopolized for commercial purposes?

by bhauer 12y ago

ttctciyf 12y ago

> I'm not sure of gTLDs can resolve directly to a host as second level domains can I'm pretty sure that "ping pt." used to work in the late 90's - though you had to supply the trailing dot.

icebraining 12y ago
There are a few; see RFC 7085: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7085 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7085
technomancy 12y ago
Looking up .museum also used to work, but it looks like something has changed.
- scrollaway 12y ago
  http://to./ http://to./ used to be a url shortener. Now it's just an apache default index.html, but it still works. :)
- firloop 12y ago
  .museum doesn't work but http://www.museum http://www.museum redirects to www.museum.com

hayksaakian 12y ago

That might be true, but look at .ceo or .luxury you can't buy those domains very cheaply. If google doesn't want you using a .app or any of their gtlds they can simply make them prohobitivly expensive.

bhauer 12y ago
Exactly. And to clarify, I very well may have missed something in the gTLD process that expressly requires—or attempted to require—the leasing of subdomains to the public. Although I was familiar enough with gTLDs to decide I was opposed to their creation, I nevertheless have spent little time actually studying gTLD requirements and processes in detail. But even if there is such a requirement for public leasing, as you said above, the cost and process for subdomain registration could be designed by the owner to be prohibitive. I am not joking when I say it not once occurred to me that owners of gTLDs may be required to lease subdomains. I assumed, in fact, that a great deal of them would be used as the exclusive playgrounds of their well-off owners. As far as I can tell, the linked article/blog entry doesn't actually establish that requirement, but I could be wrong.

dekhn 12y ago

The spelling "Google" predates "Googol", and influenced it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Google_and_Snuffy_Smith#Origin_of_.22Google.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Google_and_Snuffy_Smith#...

bhauer 12y ago
Funny. News to me! It's not going to stop me from pronouncing the search engine name as "goo-glee" since it still appears in my mind as a misspelling of googol.
- jeorgun 12y ago
  Which, as the link mentions, it is— just because their (intentional?) misspelling happens to coincide with an earlier form, doesn't mean it isn't a misspelling.
jnem 12y ago
I always thought the name was influenced by Nikolai Gogol.
WorldWideWayne 12y ago
When I was a kid we would say someone with big eyes had "googly eyes". So, when Google came around I thought it was a reference to something like that (eyes, looking, seeing).

wmf 12y ago

I had never previously assumed that the any of the owners of these gTLDs were under any obligation whatsoever to open them for widespread public domain registrations. OK, but many people (including myself) had the opposite yet equally obvious intuition that ICANN wouldn't allow closed generic TLDs. It was so obvious to me that I didn't bother to check the rules, so now we're in this situation.

meesterdude 12y ago
same!
bhauer 12y ago
Be that as it may, I am not sure what to do at this point. Had I controlled the Internet at large last year, I would have shut down the gTLD concept straight away as an unfair practice favoring well-healed corporations allowing them to achieve unprecedentedly short domain names while the plebs continued to suffer with second-level domains. I remember hearing that Canon Corporation was going to buy .canon [1]. And to my mind it was clear: they have no intent of selling .canon subdomains. Canon Corporation has no interest in being a domain registrar. They just didn't want other corporations buying and squatting on .canon. It is a land-grab where the price per plot is $185,000. Now that it has come to pass, I figure we'll all just adapt to it. I still don't like gTLDs, but so be it. You and I won't be able to get domains in .dev. So be it. I still have my domains in .com like some crazy old-timer. [1] http://www.canon.com/news/2010/mar16e.html http://www.canon.com/news/2010/mar16e.html
- wmf 12y ago
  Yes, I've come to the conclusion that there is nothing to be done about this. We can't flip the table because we failed to foresee a loophole. It's probably worth lobbying to change the rules for future gTLDs, though.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Create a DomainBlock browser plugin to blacklist generic TLDs that are monopolized for commercial purposes?