4 ms·

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 a

by 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?
- guelo 12y ago
  I don't know who your "we" includes but people in the know have been complaining about this for years.
qthrul 12y ago
Actually, not that it matters for this thread other than to speculate... What if every IP enabled commercial video monitoring device [1] on the planet were now able to have a functional and durable dynamic DNS service, ostensibly, for what comes next [2]? [1] http://www.axis.com/products/index.htm http://www.axis.com/products/index.htm [2] http://www.canon.com/news/2015/feb10e.html http://www.canon.com/news/2015/feb10e.html
pmontra 12y ago
Canon buying it's own .canon gTLD and closing it down is a way to allow http://canon http://canon in the address bar of a browser. This is fair IMHO because nobody else is expected to use a .canon domain, no more than a .canon.com one. Buying a generic word and closing it down is a different matter. Tying .blog to only one service is very different than doing it with .blogger. It's a way of saying you won't have any other blog platform than mine, no matter if you're using your self hosted WordPress or one of the many services that compete with Blogger. This would be bad no matter who's going to win the bid for .blog or any other generic word.
- function_seven 12y ago
  > Canon buying it's own .canon gTLD and closing it down is a way to allow http://canon http://canon in the address bar of a browser. It just occurred to me that—for advertising purposes—that would be longer than canon.com. They can't just plop the word "canon" at the bottom of their advertisements. Nobody would understand that to be a URL. So they would have to add the protocol to it: http://canon which is 3 characters longer than what they could do now: canon.com Not saying you're wrong about their intended use, it just struck me as ironic that having your own TLD would increase the size of your printed URL.
  - pmontra 12y ago
    I think you're right for now but in future we could get used to those naming conventions. Think about the evolution of web urls in print: http://www.company.com http://www.company.com www.company.com company.com company will be the next natural step. Maybe the step afert that will be naming the company after the domain name (some domains have hyphens in place of spaces in the name of the company now). If it were not for the huge cost everybody could have its own gTLD. We could end up being surprised that a given company still has the .com suffix. "It's a small one, they don't have money", we'll think.
    - bhauer 12y ago
      > If it were not for the huge cost everybody could have its own gTLD. We could end up being surprised that a given company still has the .com suffix. "It's a small one, they don't have money", we'll think. Precisely, and one of the many reasons gTLDs are so distasteful. It marginalizes smaller businesses that cannot (yet) afford to play with the big-boys who throw around $185,000 as if it's nothing. Prior to this, domain registration was mostly a level playing field of first-come-first-served. In a world where we often decry regulation that may benefit big business over small business, ICANN pulled this stunt which is egregiously and by design biased toward big business and it was more or less ignored by everyone. Above, you pointed out that .canon is distinct from .dev because Canon is a trademarked name. Although I understand trademarks have been used to dislodge domain squatters, I believe that's extremely rare. Making a distinction between trademarks and generic terms creates ambiguity. The gray area of deciding between a company named "DEV" wanting to (or more likely feeling they need to) spend $185,000 to protect their identity and a domain registrar wanting to spend $185,000 to sell subdomains in "dev" is yet another reason gTLDs were a bad idea.

by bhauer 12y ago

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?
guelo 12y ago
I don't know who your "we" includes but people in the know have been complaining about this for years.

qthrul 12y ago

Actually, not that it matters for this thread other than to speculate... What if every IP enabled commercial video monitoring device [1] on the planet were now able to have a functional and durable dynamic DNS service, ostensibly, for what comes next [2]? [1] http://www.axis.com/products/index.htm http://www.axis.com/products/index.htm [2] http://www.canon.com/news/2015/feb10e.html http://www.canon.com/news/2015/feb10e.html

pmontra 12y ago

Canon buying it's own .canon gTLD and closing it down is a way to allow http://canon http://canon in the address bar of a browser. This is fair IMHO because nobody else is expected to use a .canon domain, no more than a .canon.com one. Buying a generic word and closing it down is a different matter. Tying .blog to only one service is very different than doing it with .blogger. It's a way of saying you won't have any other blog platform than mine, no matter if you're using your self hosted WordPress or one of the many services that compete with Blogger. This would be bad no matter who's going to win the bid for .blog or any other generic word.

function_seven 12y ago
> Canon buying it's own .canon gTLD and closing it down is a way to allow http://canon http://canon in the address bar of a browser. It just occurred to me that—for advertising purposes—that would be longer than canon.com. They can't just plop the word "canon" at the bottom of their advertisements. Nobody would understand that to be a URL. So they would have to add the protocol to it: http://canon which is 3 characters longer than what they could do now: canon.com Not saying you're wrong about their intended use, it just struck me as ironic that having your own TLD would increase the size of your printed URL.
- pmontra 12y ago
  I think you're right for now but in future we could get used to those naming conventions. Think about the evolution of web urls in print: http://www.company.com http://www.company.com www.company.com company.com company will be the next natural step. Maybe the step afert that will be naming the company after the domain name (some domains have hyphens in place of spaces in the name of the company now). If it were not for the huge cost everybody could have its own gTLD. We could end up being surprised that a given company still has the .com suffix. "It's a small one, they don't have money", we'll think.
  - bhauer 12y ago
    > If it were not for the huge cost everybody could have its own gTLD. We could end up being surprised that a given company still has the .com suffix. "It's a small one, they don't have money", we'll think. Precisely, and one of the many reasons gTLDs are so distasteful. It marginalizes smaller businesses that cannot (yet) afford to play with the big-boys who throw around $185,000 as if it's nothing. Prior to this, domain registration was mostly a level playing field of first-come-first-served. In a world where we often decry regulation that may benefit big business over small business, ICANN pulled this stunt which is egregiously and by design biased toward big business and it was more or less ignored by everyone. Above, you pointed out that .canon is distinct from .dev because Canon is a trademarked name. Although I understand trademarks have been used to dislodge domain squatters, I believe that's extremely rare. Making a distinction between trademarks and generic terms creates ambiguity. The gray area of deciding between a company named "DEV" wanting to (or more likely feeling they need to) spend $185,000 to protect their identity and a domain registrar wanting to spend $185,000 to sell subdomains in "dev" is yet another reason gTLDs were a bad idea.