NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Oink! - AP: Internet braces for the "not-com" deluge (+ My Comments)
Oink! - AP: Internet braces for the "not-com" deluge (+ My Comments)
http://bit.ly/lN4S1Q (This message in Google Buzz)
- - -
http://bit.ly/msbzTy (AP / Palm Beach Post)
"The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will meet
Monday in Singapore (Sunday evening in the U.S.) to vote on its
expansion plan for domain names. If ICANN approves the plan as
expected, new domains could start appearing late next year." ...
But businesses worry that they'll have to grab their brand names
before others do. New suffixes could also create confusion as
consumers navigate a Web with unfamiliar labels. It's also
possible that the new names won't make much difference because
many people these days rely on search engines and mobile
applications to find what they are looking for online. Consumers
don't type Web addresses into browsers nearly as much as they did
15 years ago when talk of a domain name expansion began. 'Most
people don't pay a lot of attention to website addresses anyway
these days," said Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Land, a
website that covers the search industry.'"
- - -
A good summary overview of the current fiasco. Ultimately, billions
of dollars (and various other currencies) will be spent by businesses
desperately hoping that a new domain name brings fame and fortune.
The vast majority will learn the hard way that they've been suckered.
Another category of losers in this scheme: All the firms in a frenzied
attempt to protect their trademarks and other identity properties from
abuses in the new TLDs. The right for trademark owners to register
first in these TLDs is essentially something like being offered the
opportunity to go to the head of the line to be an extortion/rape
victim.
But there will be winners in all this:
ICANN: In search of a continuing income stream,
ICANN created a domain wet dream.
Other elements of the "domain-industrial complex":
Registries, registrars, and their various minions and partners
Litigation teams (lawyers):
They'll be raking it in from the endless series of related
lawsuits and other disputes.
-- And (oddly enough) another likely winner:
Conventional dot-com TLD owners: Amidst the confusing clutter of new
TLDs, a significant probability exists that the value of
existing dot-com TLDs will rise, as the already established
comfort level and familiarity with dot-com TLDs will stand
apart away from the confusion, and (as an added bonus) dot-com
TLDs will be less likely to suffer broad blocking (unlike any
new TLD that one government or another finds objectionable).
Particularly telling will be the number of businesses willing
to exist *only* with one of the new domains, and without a
dot-com presence as well. How many ".co" addresses have you
seen lately, despite the attempt to position ".co" as an equal
partner to ".com" ... ?
Not all that far off in the future, I suspect, the time will come when
it will be common for browsers to not even *display* domain names
by default, and instead provide other authenticated identity labels
(whether based on IDONS or something else entirely):
http://bit.ly/hLVOUv [GCTIP].
And as many observers have noted, search engines -- not domain
names -- have become the primary discovery and navigation tool for finding
sites.
ICANN's TLD expansion isn't just a "pig in a poke" -- it's an entire
planet of putrid pork.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Google Buzz: http://j.mp/laurenbuzz
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com