ICANN to overhaul internet domain names?

[PeregrineBF]

It's a stupid, idiotic money grab which runs a severe risk of overloading the 14 rot domain name servers and causing major problems. Also, it will suck and be horribly expensive for most companies, since they will have to buy their company name, and all variations thereof, for thousands of dollars each, from the ICANN. As I said, a money grab. http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/26/1814205 has some good comments. Will be $100,000 to $500,000 per TLD.

[Cain]

My heart bleeds for all those CEOs who will have to take home a reduced bonus in order to pay for this.  Perhaps all of us on the minimum wage could organize a whip-around for our suffering proletariat brothers in the offices of Halliburton, Shell, Tesco, Wal-Mart and Microsoft?

[Cramulus]

my research indicates that for a one-time donation of $75, you can join the INTERNET SOCIETY (yes, that's what it's called) and vote on issues like this. They also publish a journal.

I am very interested.

I mean, wouldn't it be cool to be a card-carrying member of the INTERNET SOCIETY? Don't worry ma'am. I'm from the INTERNET SOCIETY.

[Cain]

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

It's a stupid, idiotic money grab which runs a severe risk of overloading the 14 rot domain name servers and causing major problems. Also, it will suck and be horribly expensive for most companies, since they will have to buy their company name, and all variations thereof, for thousands of dollars each, from the ICANN. As I said, a money grab. http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/26/1814205 has some good comments. Will be $100,000 to $500,000 per TLD.

TITCM

[Cain]

Remind me why I care about multinationals having to fork out tons of money for e-presence?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Remind me why I care about multinationals having to fork out tons of money for e-presence?

Well, on the one hand I don't care about the money... but I do care about the Internet. This architecture was never designed for the data and traffic that it currently has... Opening up TLD's to just anything seems like a Black Swan Cluster Bomb, with lots of little blackswanlets that might lay around for a couple months until some 8 year old decides to play hackysack with one... But hey, its only the Internets, if something goes wrong we can just reboot it.

[Cain]

So, what you're saying is there is a small chance the internet will crash or something equally horrific and disruptive will happen?

Again, why am I meant to be against this?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

So, what you're saying is there is a small chance the internet will crash or something equally horrific and disruptive will happen?

Again, why am I meant to be against this?

I'm not against it, particularly... I just think that its a dumb idea that has little real value and introduces unnecessary complexity into an extremely complex system... in an area that was not designed to deal with such complexity.

In short, it makes my "OSHI! Engineering Senses" tingle

[Cain]

My only regret will be that I cannot live-blog the destruction of the internet, then email corporate executives laughing at their worthless purchases.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

My only regret will be that I cannot live-blog the destruction of the internet, then email corporate executives laughing at their worthless purchases.

[Cramulus]

I'm with zip. I want the domain http://cnn.fnord. Just IMAGINE!

[PeregrineBF]

No, the problem is that only large businesses will be able to get TLDs. Forcing even more massive corporations to exist. And, it's a dumb idea WRT DNS design.

[Cain]

How will it force more corporations to exist?  You reallly think people are going to engage in buyouts and mergers simply so they can get a special domain website?  When they can just grab a .com website and be done with it? 

OH NOEZ, MY LOCAL SHOP DOESN'T HAVE A DOMAIN NAME, NOW I WILL HAVE TO UNITE ALL LOCAL SHOPKEEPERS INTO A HUGE CONGLOMERATE, JUST SO I HAZ WEB PRESENCE.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

And, it's a dumb idea WRT DNS design.

Yup. DNS is touchy enough without adding more nonsense.

How will it force more corporations to exist?  You reallly think people are going to engage in buyouts and mergers simply so they can get a special domain website?  When they can just grab a .com website and be done with it? 

OH NOEZ, MY LOCAL SHOP DOESN'T HAVE A DOMAIN NAME, NOW I WILL HAVE TO UNITE ALL LOCAL SHOPKEEPERS INTO A HUGE CONGLOMERATE, JUST SO I HAZ WEB PRESENCE.

But, that isn't true. Any sane company tries to buy all versions of their domain name, otherwise you end up with something like whitehouse.com (NSFW). The guy in the cube next to me is responsible for our Domain Names and we have dozens for each brand. Sure, part of it is a desire to maintain Brand name etc, but with the advent of phishing, its really to kill off potential theft of customers.

For example, www.Victoriassecret.online might look like a great site, it may have pictures of girls in panties, and pink backgrounds and a 40% discount e-coupon. All they need is a Credit Card number... heck, they'll even sign you up for an Angels card if you give them your SSN. Of course, the site is actually owned by some asshole in his Mom's basement.

We have to track this sort of shit down all the time NOW, and we only have a few TLD's to worry about.