PC Magazine
ICANN's New Domain Policy Resets the Web
* By _Lance Ulanoff_ (http://www.pcmag.com/author-bio/lance-ulanoff)
* June 20, 2011
* _8 Comments_
(http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387270,00.asp#disqus_thread)
The promise of countless new Top Level Domains (TLDs) is sure to set in
motion the second Internet gold rush.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' (ICANN) _plan to
let almost anything be a Top Level Domain_
(http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387274,00.asp) (TLD) is about to take
the Web back to its Wild West
roots. And only those who remember history know what to expect.
Way back in the early days of the Web, I remember the domain name gold
rush. It was just like the Gold Rush of 1848, [1849] with domain name
prospectors racing across a virtual country of possible top-level domain names
(TLDs) to try and find the gold hidden among them. What constituted domain
gold?
Anything that anyone else might want—really, really badly.
Brand names were at a premium. So were simple names. CNET's founder Halsey
Minor shrewdly snapped up "TV", "News", "Download" and more. Any domain
that described a thing was of high value and any brand name that was a domain
was soon contested. You see, in the early days of the World Wide Web, no
one thought about how it should really be the intellectual property (IP)
owner who registers the matching domains. For example, McDonalds.com was not,
initially, owned by the restaurant chain. "Whitehouse.com," is still not
owned by the White House. Bill Clinton did not own "WilliamJClinton" and Nike
didn't own "JustDoIt.net." This wasn't really surprising, considering how
slowly old-world brands (and people) moved online. Some weren't even sure
there was value in putting their brands on the Web. No one in 1996 foresaw
that the little online bookstore Amazon.com would turn into the global online
retail giant it is today.
These legal battles cost companies and celebrities millions and made
squatters an equal amount of money. Eventually, most major brands found a way
to
get their domains. Now, ICANN threatens to start the whole thing over
again. They just introduced rules that will add an almost unlimited number of
top level domains (these are the .coms, .orgs and .nets of the world). There
are currently 22. When ICANN is finished, there could be millions.
Reports I read noted that brands are already lining up for their own TLDs:
Coke will have ".coke". I imagine McDonalds will acquire ".McDonalds." I
can feel the Internet gold rush starting again already. However, where the
mid-'90s rush required little more than a pickaxe and a horse-drawn wagon,
this prospecting will require the equivalent of a Lamborghini and a
safe-cracker. ICANN wants to charge almost $200,000 for the application and
$25,000
in annual fees. To put this in perspective, I pay approximately $35 a year
for my LanceUlanoff.com domain.
This will deter private individuals from squatting on valuable TLDs, but it
will not stop companies from grabbing up all sorts of TLDs. All they needs
is the money and the ability to prove they deserve the right to own
".ketchup". I use this example, because there may be a flaw in this plan.
While
most individuals cannot afford ICANN's new steep charges, corporations can—
in multiples. I bet they'll find a way to snap up as many of them as they
can and then the fighting will begin. You see, it's obvious who should own
".capitolone", but not who would get ".money".
These battles, which I fully expect to witness, could be great fun to
watch, but could also drag the ICANN into a never-ending series of decisions
with which it doesn't want to deal.
The other side of this is the equation is why ICANN thinks it can charge so
much. Are they saying that no average person should have the right to own
a TLD? I really do not want ".ulanoff" because I think
www.lanceulanoff.ulanoff looks ridiculous, but maybe I would want
www.editing.ulanoff. With
this pricing and annual fee plan, there's no way I could have that or
www.home.lanceulanoff. ICANN may believe it's heading off lots of confusion
and a
hoard of greedy squatters, but I think they're starting a fire in the
corporate world and handcuffing everyone else.
Leaving aside the common man's access to these new TLDs, the introduction
of an unlimited number of them—for everything from people to places,
companies, to major organizations—will reignite a more basic gold rush. It
won't
be as intense as the first one, because every so-called great domain on
these new TLDs will be little more than a subset of the parent. You can get
"news," but it'll be under a new ".NJ" domain. In other words, the number of
prospectors rushing to dig up that nugget will probably be limited to those
with interests in New Jersey.
When these new TLDs start going on sale in January 2012, it'll be a new
beginning for the Web, with big companies driving their safe-crackers in
Lamborghinis to ICANN, and countless small-time prospectors searching for
domain
nuggets in their own backyards. It makes me kind of nervous, but I'm also
looking forward to watching the action.
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