Quick, name three significant web sites that have domain extensions that end in .me or .tv. Having trouble? Sure, there are a few of them out there (kyte.tv and Buddy.tv come to mind, but I can’t think of any major .me’s). For all of the hype surrounding these extensions at launch, they’ve largely failed to deliver.
Earlier today Chris Dannen at FastCompany wrote a post titled “How 2009 Will Spur The Rebirth Of Cyber Squatting“. In it, Dannen writes about the beginning of a new age of domain squatting, as ICANN (the organization that handles domain name registrations) begins accepting applications for new domain name suffixes. He posits that with the emergence of new extensions like “.nyc” or “.law” these squatters will be given a new lease on life, with a nearly endless number of possible domains to plunder. Legitimate companies, likewise, will have to register as many domains as they can in the hopes of fending off sites like “Microsoft.sux”.
Fortunately, Dannen is wrong. Some overzealous companies may still go to the trouble of snatching up as many domains as they can, but it will be for naught.
If ICANN does wind up releasing dozens or hundreds of new domain name extensions, extensions in general will become increasingly meaningless. Many people are already confused enough by the differences between common extensions like “.net” and “.com”. And they’ve generally rejected the overhyped extensions that are already out there, like “.tv”. Adding countless others to the mix will only make them more confused, to the point that they no longer care.
Instead, they’ll just turn to search engines. Many people are already using Google to search for whole domain names, and I can’t think of the last time I’ve directly entered a URL from an ad I heard on TV or the radio (I usually just type the company name into Google). Search engines generally do a better job at identifying the most authoritative sites in a space, and as they get smarter by paying more attention to user location and semantics, the bias for search engines over URLs will only become stronger.
To some extent we need this – the internet has essentially run out of good domain names. Most startups and small companies can’t afford to play the squatting game, leading them to create brand names that are as forgettable as they are meaningless. As we make the jump from the URL to the search engine, they’ll be able to name themselves whatever they’d like, even if they use an obscure extension.
This won’t kill off cyber squatting entirely – .com’s will continue to command exorbitant prices, and a handful of domain extensions may eventually emerge as popular alternatives to .com and .net. But the idea that the web will soon become “incomprehensibly more vast and expensive” is simply misguided. It might get a little bigger, but it won’t be anything Google can’t handle.
“(I usually just type the company name into Google)”
Bingo. Same here. Firefox’s Google Search field on top right is like the address bar to me. I usually put in a company name and hit enter.
Even better is, you can configure it so that it does the good old “I am feeling lucky” feature and will take you directly to that company’s website (in most cases).
How about that for a counter-domainsquatter sweetness?
I always do a search for the company name as well. Just seems safer to me.
To learn more about Islam and see how it is the best religion, visit http://www.isla...cb.blogspot.com
No thanks. I’ll just let Israel handle that problem.
FREE PALESTINE
whatreallyhappened dot com
Don’t you savages have a pre-school to bomb or a woman to beat? Seriously, go away.
HAH~ This is almost as bad as the neighborhood Jehovah’s Witnesses. Get A Life! Keep your religion to yourself you /bot/ and quit saying you’re better than any of the other million-or-so religions out there. Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Scientology – they are all the same. None are better; all are equal; all are bogus.
To learn more about Muslim women and see how they are the best cock suckers, visit
http://blog.jilbab.eu
Are people really this unaware that cybersquatting was declared illegal by the supreme court? Cyber Objection!
http://en.wikip..._Protection_Act
http://en.wikip...i/Lapsed_lurker
There you go. If you are a company and want a .com name that is the same as yours and it is owned by a squatter… it’s yours. You can either sue the domain owner or the name itself. However you cannot recover any fees or damages for suing the the domain, only the owner. So choose wisely on which you will file suit. In most cases, filing for a trademark is a lot cheaper than paying a squatter. Only catch is you have to provide proof they are doing it for profit. So be sneaky. However in situations like Microsoft v Mike Rowe, you can’t win easily if they are using it for legit purposes. This was established in 1999, I’m surprised more people don’t know about this. I’m floored at how many people have probably gotten screwed because they were unaware of this law. It’s the #1 result on google if you type in cybersquatting.
Um, you are on TC and can’t think of any .tv’s? ustream and justin come to mind right off that bat and I barely follow this stuff. Both of those are mentioned quite often here.
Fine, I can name them. Can your mom? Anyone else who doesn’t follow tech news regularly?
Yes but my mom isn’t going to read your article on TC, so that kind of defeats the purpose of asking the question that way. I guess it’s mostly just an argument with where you were going with the first part of the article. And I agree with Austin that .tv has gained traction and I believe with all the video on the web it will continue to grow.
ackshwally, i agree with jason on this one completely – people are out there grabbing every permutation of whatever.tv/.me and nobody cares – just as they don’t really care with older tld’s, particularly “.net” and “.info”
seems more like a branding issue than a tld issue though, and a larger awareness issue – some people do not even realize that alternate tld’s exist! that’s scary stuff….
Who cares about my moms market, really if you are looking ahead for investing oppurtunities then .tv domains and even more video over internet is the way to go.
I come from Greece where websites are not so many, even here all teenage girls and boys know mad.tv other .tv’s
Middle aged men know about bourdela.tv and so on…
I feel the coming generation will use more and more tv/video from the web and .tv’s are very familiar with those content.
Wasnt he talking about .me? He did name a few .tv domains.
I agree on that point, Richard.
Right now it seems that the only extension other than .com, .net, and .org to have gained serious traction is .tv
.me is a big flop, same as .tel, .name, and .asia…. to name a few.
Both .me and .tv are country top level domains (of Montenegro and Tuvalu). They just happen to sound like they’re meant for specific purposes/industries.
Similarly, Bahamas has the best tld out there: .bs
I think the thrust is, domain name extensions are becoming increasingly irrelevant in the face of Google and its incredible accuracy.
Why bother registering for the various extensions for your domain name if almost all of your visitors are going to come in via a search engine anyway?
You still have to have a domain to tell people on teh street to go to. Google isn’t the only horse dragging people to the watering hole. If your domain is anything other than the .com you’ll be sending some of those people off to the .com . Traffic leaks suck. Just ask Del.iciou.us or was that Deli.cio.us ? . . . oh yea it’s Delicious.com now. . .
Since the web first hit the mainstream I’ve been yearning for natural-language domain names, rather than all this dot-com computerspeak. AOL was promising with its keywords for sites.
So it’s heartening that googling for real names takes precedence over remembering the actual URL.
sounds like good news for existing dot com squatters.
Yep. I totally mistype XYZLocator.com all the time and land on one of your awesome sites.
?
Actually, it’s the exact opposite: it will mostly destroy the domain squatting business. Not only will it cost many thousands of dollars to apply for a single TLD (i.e. a single name/keyword), it’s more organized with priority given to actual companies and trademarks (therefore it’ll be harder and not cost-effective for most squatters to try to snap up everything in sight).
http://notify.me is rocking.
figure out which chinese-character becomes the “.com” equivalent. There will be a land run there, after the weird character-homonym-assignment rule gets worked out.
That ship sailed: for China, the most important addresses are
.cn
.com
.com.cn
.cn: “It is currently the second most common top-level domain, only after .com, but before .de, and .net, with over 12 million registrations.” [Wikipedia]
Comparison of international Domain Numbers: http://www.deni...tlds/index.html
irony: http://www.tech...cash-for-ypcom/
well http://www.sumo.tv and it has it’s own TV channel on SKY in the UK
Some extensions are handy, .mobi gets you through the global vodafone proxy to stop your mobile site being munged by their translator. Otherwise it’s an SEO game
we need more successful startups to convince people about usability of these extentions. .tv domains now more closer to com,net,org. But it’s still early for .me domains i think.
“(I usually just type the company name into Google)” – I thought I was alone in doing that. I never use the address bar anymore.
Great article. I recently dealt with a squatting company, I knocked 3k off the price tag, but that still doesn’t beat the $10/year I could have paid and will now pay from here on out.
Jeff – When you say “squatting company” do you mean domain reseller, or someone who had a trademarked domain of yours?
Mark – They owned a trademarked domain of mine. I had purchased BestTechie.net when I was 13 years old (in 2003). Of course, at the time, it was just meant to be something fun for me to play with, however, it since turned into a platform I create content on. They purchased BestTechie.com in 2005. While the company is technically not a “squatter” company, I view them as one for the above reason.
Also, since the domain is pretty descriptive in terms of the type of content that would (most likely) be placed on it, it would very difficult for anyone else to use it without legal problems.
If you visit my site, I posted the video (somewhere in the archives of September, iirc) of the call I had with them, if you’re interested.
Hope that clears up any confusion!
Next time consider filing for an actual trademark… Otherwise, you have no claim to using “BestTechie”. Purchasing the domain name does not grant a trademark to the domain name; it only grants you ownership of that particular domain/tld combination.
Joe – Yes, I understand that. It helps that my dad is an IP Lawyer. I’ve gone over this with him multiple times. However, there are certain rights I have since I have been using the name the longest (which don’t help in this particular case, though).
That being said, filing for the mark is on my ToDo list.
I am the owner of the FIRST new suffix domain: http://Free.TV
When I purchased it eight years ago, NO ONE knew what a dot TV was. They always assumed the URL was FreeTV.Com
Today, is a different story: people understand .TV domains, and they can learn other DOTs as well.
Search engines are great for finding a site, but BAD for marketing. A nice short URL is priceless
I am also the founder of OpenDomain.Org where we GIVE domains away for FREE – maybe you heard of Drupal.com or Ecmascript.Org?
If anyone wants a TRUE insight to domains feel free to contact me
Hello everyone,
I would be greatful to hear from anyone on what they think of my domain names. So please feel free to comment back. I thank you all in advance and I look forward to receiving your comments. Here they go http://www.BOOKLOGIN.COM http://WWW.CASHBAKU.COM http://www.THISISTIRANA.COM http://www.ALBANIAID.COM One Country One Identity. OFERTAFALAS.COM=FreeOffers.com http://www.TiranaPost.com EUROPAPLANET.COM GazetaIndex.com http://www.60Minuta.com
You guys don’t type URL’s into the address bar? Really?? Why take the extra step of going through google?
I saw my old boss do that once and I thought she was just a rookie.
I’m not worried about this squatting on trademarks – the law is pretty clear and squatters on these names rarely make out much anymore – it’s more a pain than anything.
The bigger danger in my opinion is with the big companies trying to steal domains from legitimate owners. (See Lufthansa stealing LH.com from a completely legitimate owner through arbitration)
Ever since I hooked my Mom up with Google Chrome, she just types in the first few characters in the omnibar, and Google returns the page she wants in the dropdown – she just clicks it and goes. This is great because she’s always been terrible about spelling domain names correctly. Now she doesn’t have to: get it half-way right and pick from the results the page title that sounds like what she wants.
As for myself, when I’m not sure of a domain name I just type it into the Awesome Bar and hit enter — Google hasn’t gotten me the wrong site yet.
If I have not been to the site before I always google it first. My new browser window opens blank, one tab and you’re in google search. Not much of a step.
An example why its a good idea…..on the East coast we have a burger place called “five guys”…. I was unsure of the domain name, typed in the other domain name (5) and you get a site that you weren’t expecting. Don’t try this at work….. that’s all I have to say!
95% of domains held for speculation are worthless crap- lottery tickets that will NEVER be cashed.
Regarding .tv I think there is some usage but it isn’t commonplace. In terms of the value the prices are very low and lots of people have lost money on this one.
I generally don’t discriminate or put preferences on domain extensions, as long as the site content is what I need. There are some cool sites with weird domain names and extensions, such as De.licio.us, did i spell that right, and others, but I just find it lame for someone to try to capitalize on a really weird and long non-dot com domain.
I agree that, by releasing all of the extensions mentioned and more, they will lessen the importance of the .tv’s etc. I still think though that generic .com’s will be very valuable.
I don’t think people will stop directly navigating by typing in domain names either unless the masses stop using IE, which I doubt will happen while Windows still dominates OS’s.
I totally agree, those extensions are worthless – there’s just too many of them out there. I remember having a debate with someone about the value of .mobi. I said that you didn’t need a .mobi because the browser could already ID the hardware and redirect to the appropriate formatting. That’s true now with facebook. On an iPhone, I just get redirected to iPhone.facebook.com. Why should the end user do all the thinking when Facebook has all of that brainpower to think these things through and route us to the appropriate places? That said, if you got shut out of your desired domain, Google shouldn’t discriminate against you for having a lousy extension.
The pics look like they are stolen from Uncov?
I saw this posted on http://www.Ocea...rontDomains.Com and wanted to add in my $0.02. I think several of you are missing the boat by saying you rely on G to find the proper domain for you. Huh? Why would you want to do that? Who would intentionally name their cyber business with a mediocre name with the reliance that G will “take care of them”. Um…what if one hypothetical day G doesn’t?
I still like names like http://cu.be and http://ba.be – too bad there aren’t many of them around !
I got this hot name http://www.playum.com
it’s okay Squatters come and Squatz all ur $$ money ahaha, here some extensions ideas .me, .tv .your, .mind, .notmind, .yourmomma, .Squatters, .dudewheresmycar LOL
If u don’t have extension .com then save ur $$$ and get a life…
sparky – December 30th, 2008 at 4:29 pm PST
95% of domains held for speculation are worthless crap- lottery tickets that will NEVER be cashed.
- – - – Kinda like the lotto tickets the states sell every week. The next time you buy them, consider your statement above.
Loser!
you compare lottery tickets to…lottery tickets.
brilliant.
jason you usually write good pieces but i have to disagree with this one. the domain squatters game is similar to baseball the majority of the times they will strike out but they need only one hit in .tv etc.. arena for a homerun.
This view is getting really old. Folks need to stop living other people’s lives for them and let the market decide.
I do not need another mother, thanks for trying.
Fact is the number of computer barf “hope and dream” registrations in .COM are *STAGERING* compared to the *TOTAL* registrations of the TLDs mentioned. And yet *NOBODY* ever bothers to mention them ….. How many of those registrations will survive with a “blowout” of the TLD space? I bet the .COM registration total could drop 90% and nobody would notice … Except Verisign stockholders …..
And lets get to a far more important issue, that of “root splitting”. China allready “split the root” via I-DNS and has setup it’s own IDN TLDs and *THAT* was why ICANN even started looking into IDN TLDs. Had China not split the ROOT ICANN likely would never have bothered with IDN TLDs at all.
ICANN is releasing more TLDs in order for it to retain control of the ROOT. If ICANN is not allowed to do so I expect the ROOT to continue to split, with ICANN likely being irrelavent in 3 to 5 years.
Frankly I see pros and cons of an ICANN expansion of the TLD space or goverments taking control and expanding TLD is a “split” way. But no matter what this is going to happen. So the real debate here is then benefits of doing it orderly via ICANN or just let the market do it. Again, I see benefits either way.
People also forget that the entire internet and ROOT of today is *NOT* based on ICANN or the US goverment … It’s based on 13 IP addresses that people blinding leave as defaults on their DNS servers. The first, say ISP that wakes up and realizes this and it’s all going to comes crashing down. Say Comcast decides to implement .COMCAST on it’s network, or .QWEST. Again, China has allready proven the point, actions by others are not far behind.
ISP’s capturing and monitizing wild card error traffic is also a form of ROOT splitting.
There is no “if” here, there is only when …
In fact if *I* were the CEO of a large ISP I’d go to FORD and other brands and ask them how much they’d pay me for adding their brand as a TLD to my network. I’d do it for free, but I’d charge them for every page delivered. They’d be hooked in no time, and they’d also be stuck paying me forever more, or until they could get their TLD into the ROOT … Somehow …
I think social media squatting will be a bigger issue to be frank. Companies that haven’t started grabbing land on Facebook pages, Twitter, etc. should do so immediately or risk falling victim to squatters. Just look at the recent #2013 fiasco that’s hit colleges and universities on Facebook.
“no more good domain names”
hee.
That’s what marketing is for.
If I can snag FourDaysOnly.com and SaleEndsSunday.com, just a couple years ago, then there are plenty of great domains left.
Wish you had snagged YesWeCan.com? Changes in the marketplace make opportunities for “good” domain names.
Just a few months ago, SarahPalin2008.com probably could have been had for retail price.
and so it goes…
correction: sarahpalin2012.com…
Bad examples:
– sarahpalin2012 (*shudder*) was registered 24-AUG-07, over 1 year & 4 months ago.
– yeswecan.com was registered 1998-05-20, over 10 years ago.
But, yes, a lot of names expire and can be bought at auction. Ultimately, it’s still up to who has the most $ of who can get a really good name. Totally destroying the flow of standard TLDs and allowing “.companynames” will ultimately be the downfall of .com, bringing the transition into what’s essentially just purchasing your own keyword. However, it will also have the negative effect of making it harder for the little guys to buy their “.companyname” TLD — depending on how many $thousands the application fees are — which will be expected if one wants to appear like a solid, trustworthy company to the public (just like .com carries the most trust right now).
Don’t forget, there’s also Boxee.tv and i.tv. Both pretty great sites, too.
Good point. I want a Boxee invite like crazy.
LOL @ .WTF.
LOL @ .WTF. Is there a .WTF TLD?
Check out this post by John Levine at the CircleID blog about US Dept of Commerce communications with ICANN. http://tinyurl.com/icanndoc
Looks like there will be significant delay (or ending??) of the release of new TLDs to private entities. Time for some economic studies as they say… and here is the letter from the DoC to ICANN http://tinyurl.com/doctoicann
Peace – T
Jason Kincaid writes:
“Many people are already confused enough by the differences between common extensions like “.net” and “.com”… Adding countless others to the mix will only make them more confused, to the point that they no longer care.”
Unless, of course, they care about the extension. What (young, female) Jonas Brothers fan would’nt want to reg ‘theirname.jonas’?
Imagine what .obama would have done on the global (fundraising) market.
Consider the sale of .phillies after the world series… with the hottest bidding for 2008.phillies
All of these extensions would have made their TLD investment back in the first week.
Welcome to the age of vanity plate domaining… where anybody who makes a name for themselves would be a fool Not to create a new revenue stream from their own domain extension.
While some vanity extensions may be ‘flash-in-the-pan’ markets, many new namespace properties… like president.obama, or 2008.phillies will always have value to collectors.
Hey Jason, just for saying that, I have registered
http://datega.me
just now, and I plan to build the most innovative paid dating site on that domain. Hopefully I’ll contribute one more cool domain name outside the .com world. Wish me luck! I will post again when it’s done
Greg
PS: I’m not kidding.
Hey loser, try doing some basic research before writing on the topic. The majority of domain speculators are just that, speculators – just like in real estate. It’s only cybersquatting when it infringes on a trademark.
Now go write another useless facebook or hulu article
The man is right. Cybersquatters are technically guys who are infringing on trademarks, from the Anti-Cybersquatter act.
Didn’t yp.com go for some million dollars, so I assume someone else would too for the hot new suffix.
In the end, branding is about … CREDIBILITY—Tom Peters.
The best brands are those that correspond directly to their domain name. In conversation, we more commonly say “that’s a good domain name” than “that’s a good brand.”
The $20-$30 million cost of starting a vTLD (v = vanity) will reduce speculation, although not all vTLD operators will immediately release or protect domains with TM issues.
Having a TM does not automatically give one a right to a domain name, or vice versa.
The ranting against ‘speculators’ or ‘squatters’ sounds like jealousy on the part of people who were late to understand the importance of online branding.
Although there have been some big-ticket prices for domains, there are plenty of good ones on the market for less than $10k – less than the price of a one-time print ad in a major newspaper or business magazine.
The decline of traditional media is making domain names more important than ever. The rise of vTLDs will add additional confusion and serve to reinforce the importance of solid dot-com domains.
The beauty of good domain names is that many of them represent business-startup-ideas is a box. Consumers ‘get’ good domain names. It’s time pundits did too.
It’s not like real estate, and I’m sick to death of that analogy.
First of all, in real estate you have to pay taxes, and those taxes go towards the local government to improve the area, pay for schools; benefit the common man. With domain names, you hardly pay anything, and that money goes to a heartless corporation whose only interest is making money.
Second, real estate (on Earth) occupies a finite amount of 2d space. We can’t create new real estate out of thin air and say “now for sale is all land in the altitude from 2000ft to 2001ft — we’ll call it 2k land.” And if we could do that, imagine how enraged the people at 1999ft would be that they now are pretty much forced to buy the lot above them because the land appropriation authority (who should be thankful they’ve been granted that authority, and who should be not-for-profit) wants to further line their pockets.
Third, if I own a lot of land, and you come and buy every piece of land around me and fill it with billboards about porn and other things that aren’t allowed in my neighborhood, you are going to get your ass sued. There are building codes, permits, zones, etc, exactly for this reason, to stop losers from devaluing the property.
If buying domain names “on speculation” is to be anything at all like real estate, then you need to stop kidding yourself with this “branding” bullshit and realize you have *very* low moral standards. You are only getting away with it due to the fact that the authority you buy from is as much slime as you are. You are scum, and don’t forget it. Just because you can get away with it, it doesn’t mean it’s right, and just because there’s a market, it doesn’t mean it’s right, either. There’s a market for blackmail, but that doesn’t make it right.
Squatters: I’d like to see you buy land as recklessly and shamefully as you do domain names, watch you build worthless pits of mud with sketchy drug and warez peddling gypsies on your property (eg: the skeezy worthless ads you show), have those gypsies sucker a few people, and then call that “branding.” Then, don’t give a penny to your neighbors… in fact, force them to buy you because your property is such a disgraceful eyesore and public nuisance to the neighborhood. I’d pay to watch you do that.
Just shut up you bitter dumb ass.
Actually, it is a lot like real estate. Analogy to your points:
1. Taxes/Fees
Domain owners pay recurring fees. And owning a lot of vanity TLDs would cost a hefty amount to maintain.
2. Limited Space
Alphanumeric characters comprise a limited space. It’s excruciatingly limited when you consider actual usable and short names — which everyone wants to own (unless you’re fine with making people type qxzkjlw.com).
3. Zoning
Laws for what one builds on real estate doesn’t negate the analogy of speculation and land holders to domain holders (as bother are essentially not building anything yet with the site; they’re holding it). The name itself of many domains sort of direct the likely potential of it (e.g. “techcrunch.com” is probably going to be about technology; or it could be an energy candy bar for geeks :p)
4. Squatting & Fair Speculation
Squatting is knowingly infringing on others’ established branding. Other than that, it’s an open market: first-come, first-serve. That’s why YellowPages has no more right to own “yp.com” than a person named named “Yip Py”. They had to buy it on the open market.
Do I like the way things are, how most semi-decent names are taken? No, who does, but that’s the name of the game. I am no more entitled to a name than anyone else is. If *you* were to purchase a name I wanted one day earlier than I get to it, and you don’t build anything on the site instantly, should I then call you a “squatter”? No. It’s a legitimate buy and a legitimate system more or less.
What was unethical though was when some companies gave whois lookups to domain botters who instantly registered the name for FREE just for the grace period. That wasn’t an equal playing field. But it does go to show that if there’s a name you simply “need”, it’s a good investment to get it and not wait.
I think the happy medium really shifted out of balance when .com domain fees plummeted from $75-100+/year to wholesale prices of ~$6 or so. Even so, it’s fair speculation and quite analogous to real estate; like in most cases, those with the most money, foresight, and knowledge of the system will take advantage of it. Just try finding or even purchasing a single lot of land for sale in a busy downtown area. Yep.
Sam you commie pos go fuck yourself and get a job you jealous worthless asshole
@Zx
1. Taxes/Fees. Yes, squattors (or speculators, whatever), have to pay barely significant recurring fees. What you missed was where that money goes and also how much that is. I’d be less upset if the money somehow went to improve the internet, or something of benefit to the “neighborhood,” but it doesn’t. It instead lines pockets. Second, the amount of the recurring fee is like $6/yr (probably less when you buy 100,000 domains a year), and has nothing to do with the “property value.” If a speculator wants to try and sell a domain name for $50,000, maybe he should have to pay a larger recurring fee than $6/yr while he holds on to it.
2. Limited Space. Yeah, ok, so there are domain name limits (namely: 63 alpha/numeric/- characters). Short names, and names with actual words in them, of course *are* limited. At this point, “speculating” scum have probably bought out every sensical two word combination. But the point was that new TLDs can be created out of thin air.. there’s no limit to how many “.whatevers” you can create, unless you want to get into browser-specific maximum url limits. But that number would be too long to type in this comment box.
3. Zoning. Squattors, speculators, whatever, put useless “relevant” search results that are absolute crap. And if they’re squatting a typo of a domain or some permutation, the search results are about what you were looking for in the first place. That’s like building cities around “New York” called “New_York” “Nu York” “New-York” and pretending like they are New York (and profiting from that).
4. Agreed that the “grace period” is complete shit. Also, shitheads like GoDaddy that take your search results and then hold that domain hostage after 24hours. That’s like spying on property purveyors then snatching their prospect after they turn around for a minute. It’s bad enough they automate registering permutations, but to have their own patrons generate which domains they should sit on is sickening.
@p and @gfy: you two should totally hook up.
OP is dead on.
Domains are not real estate, they are RENEWABLE LEASES that may be renewed up to 10 years out.
The whole TLD thing is a scam. They create “real estate” out of thin air and sell it to squatters who sit on it at a low low price, so that one day an entrepreneur has to pay out their ass to get a decent name.
I think there should be a firefox add-on that lets you choose a DNS resolver of your choice… so that “google.com” goes to the IP according to ICANN’s “firefoxredirecter.com”. And, within firefoxredirecter.com, it’s a huge democratic system that shits on squatters. EG: user’s decide that “go0gle.com” goes to the “proper/ICANN” google.com, and not some squatting bullshit.
In other words, allow users to choose other “superdomains” other than ICANN.
Dead on. Only those of us who understand how the web works beyond the browser could possibly care. Regular people have enough trouble with phone numbers and email addresses let alone something as esoteric as TLDs.
To the entire world “.com” IS THE INTERNET.
If someone says, “Go to Techcrunch. It’s on the internet” If techcrunch.com doesn’t work they will simply give up. No credible percentage of Internet users would even try techcrunch.net.
Also sam is brilliant. But you’d need to create more value for the community, or for business, than sticking it to cybersquatters.
- Curtis
http://ShipItOnTheSide.com – Learn to ship profitable software as a side job.
In general, I would agree. The rise and fall of .mobi and .eu prices on the domain aftermarket is testament to this.
However, do not forget that country specific domains (i.e. .co.uk) are also prime real estate in their respective nations and short and quality generic domains will continue to grow in value.
I think that ICANN opening up TLD registration is a great idea, and here’s why.
1. As you mention, since Google is becoming the authority on where to find a company instead of the domain name, having a good extension among the choices today is less important.
2. If ICANN decides to charge a good sum for a TLD, say, a couple thousand dollars, it pretty much makes it unfeasible to squat a TLD, yet still affordable for a legit company to register a TLD. I think this is the best reason for opening up TLD registration.
3. This opens a new paradigm. Right NOW people are used to going to .com’s only. But down the road, I think it will be natural for people to automatically go to http://www.microsoft and get to where they intended to go in the first place. It will take some time for this shift to occur on a grand scale, but I can definitely see it happening.
What a flawed, flawed proposal by ICANN. Nice to see push back on it by the fed gov, among others.
I am not surprised at all.
Jess
http://www.privacy-tools.at.tc
The man is right. Cybersquatters are technically guys who are infringing on trademarks, from the Anti-Cybersquatter act.
It is very interesting.
If I’m going to a site which is new to me, I’ll often use Google so that I get a list of search results. Then I can read Web of Trust in the results and get warnoffs for unsafe sites.
Not all browsers are created equal. Konqueror, for instance, does not differentiate between online files and those on the computer. It will formfill right in the Address Bar.
Not all is rosy on search. I often find I have to change search engines to find some places because of preferential returns to advertisers : actually killing usable resuilts. That’s why I keep a wild online Del.icio.us bookmarks file.
Well I learned nothing new.
Just remember this:
.com is like the 1-800 numbers
Everyone thinks of 1-800 before thinking of the alternatives. In fact, are there really alternatives ? Only phone freaks would know.
As I understand it, the proliferation of new extensions is not going to happen as predicted in this article.
ICANN is charging somewhere in the six figure range to apply to be a new .whatever registry (or registrar…I forget the terminology), and then only after someone becomes the .whatever registry, then they can go out and sell specific domains like godaddy, enom, etc. does.
So if Microsoft is worried about having to register microsoft.sux, first someone is going to have to pony up six figures to be the .sux registry.
Given the high barriers to entry here, I don’t think these new extensions are going to multiply as fast as everyone is assuming.
How much did Versign’s SiteFinder cost?
-> The time it took to add a wildcard into the root
How much does Verizons and other ISPs wildcarding cost?
-> Costs nothing, actually makes money
How much does Microsoft’s Internet Explorer cost to capture error taffic and monitize it?
-> Costs nothing, actually makes money. In effect Microsoft is one of the worlds biggest typosquater via IE error traffic redirection ….. This is also why they want typosquating ended since that traffic (lack of domain registrations) then get monitized by THEIR BROWSER.
Why do PC manufactures want to customized the installed browser and the new PC’s they sell?
-> To redirect the traffic away from Microsoft and ISP to monitize it themselves thus generating huge recuring revenue after the original sale.
That’s why this will happen, so take your pick; ICANN or a free market. So in fact it’s not a matter of “will happen”, per the many examples above it has happened and continues to happen. New TLDs in effect give Brands the abilty to control it by branding at the TLD, for example.
Perhaps I’m biased, but I think it’s still early for the alternative domain suffix. Sure, my mom does not use any .tv sites, but I believe this has more to do with my mom not finding any of those sites that are worth exploring for her than an actual problem with .tv.
Almost without exception the successful sites thus far with .me, .tv, .us, etc. suffixes include the suffix as part of the name. You don’t search for “Justin” on google, you look for justin.tv. Same thing for notify.me.
When we named our latest document embedding web service, we called it embedit.in — tying the domain name to the name of the service. You can name a site using the whole domain without pulling a ‘del.icio.us’.
Squatters will still have something to do, but they might have to be more creative with their purchases. Will I ever want embedit.cn? Probably not. But with the difficultly of finding a good, affordable .com domain these days, embedit.in was awfully appealing.