I hear and read how ICAAN wants to create some new high level domain extensions. I believe some of the ones mentioned are .kid, .biz, .xxx. Things like that. Is this really necessary? I know most of the .com ones are used up, but doesn’t this simply force anyone who wants to start up an internet venture to buy even more domain names and put more money in someone’ else’s pocket? Like Amazon.com. You know they will feel that in order to portect themselves they will have to register amazon.kid, amazon.xxx, etc.
You’ve nailed it. There is a shortage of domain names, but it’s certain the the same people who hold .com domains will be the first in line to buy the other options, as a matter of trademark protection if nothing else.
We talked about this several times before. But the one i think was clever was for some tiny country, I forgot the name, but they own ‘.tv’ So some US comp paid $50M & bought the rights to it. Guess why? Yep, for tv program web sites.
The “.xxx” proposal (for adult websights) is actually a pretty controversial one. The ‘reputable’ porn sights are all for something like this, because it would be a snap to design a program for parents to keep kids out of their websites, and the bother of AVS’s would be history. All of the sleazy porn sites, OTOH, are against such a system because noone would ever go to their pathetic websites if they didn’t trick people into it (eg [Link deleted… it was an example of a porn site with a non-obvious name]
It won’t make a blind bit of difference for “cybersquatters” (I hate that term). The WIPO, which has become the de facto ruling body when it comes to domain name ownership disputes (cynics suggest because it usually finds in favour of the big guns), will force a handover of almost any name to the company over the individual. This is especially true as no individual will have been able to build an established name for themselves using a disputed address and thus come up with a decent defence.
Except that we aren’t running out of domain names. All we’re running out of is uncreative names. For instance, I’m sure that bank.com is already teken by someone, but were I to start a non-virtual bank, I wouldn’t even think of calling it just “Bank”. I might call it, for instance, Bank of Bozeman, and sure enough, bankofbozeman.com is still available. Why should folks be surprised that they can’t get a single generic word for a web address?
By the way, Diceman, I know that your intentions were good, but we can’t have live links to porn sites on the board, and it’s best to not even have the URL listed.