New York City Cooks Up Annoying Plan That Will Pressure NYC Businesses To Buy .nyc Domains They Don't Want Or Need

Failures

from the but...-money dept

Tue, Apr 3rd 2012 5:30am — Mike Masnick

New York City officials are apparently all excited about a guaranteed $3.6 million "risk free to taxpayers" after signing a deal with a Virginia company to offer .nyc domains. This is one of those things that sounds good until you think it through, and then you realize it's effectively a hidden business tax. NYC gets to promote it as a way for more companies in NYC to have domains, and to identify themselves as NYC-based companies. But for companies already based there, they now need to buy up these domains they don't want or need, just to keep others from buying them up.

To businesses, which only need one website address, new domain names are often a tax they must pay to protect their brand. It’s as if someone printed an alternate copy of the White Pages and asked companies to buy a listing before it was sold to someone else.

In this case, a New York City company like Bloomberg would have to buy Bloomberg.nyc or face having to buy it back at a higher price. Other iconic New York City brands will likely watch nervously to see what becomes names like of “gossipgirl.nyc” or “magnoliabakery.nyc”

The company behind this is asking people to pre-register "for free," but (tellingly) does not share how much the .nyc domains will actually cost once registration opens for real. So while NYC officials can pretend that they've "found" money here, the reality is that they're creating a totally wasteful business tax and a true nuisance for NYC businesses.

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Filed Under: domains, gtld, new york city, nyc, tax

41 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 5:39am

nyc be trollin'
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John Doe, 3 Apr 2012 @ 5:43am

Could be a couple things going on here
Could be that the local government doesn't have a clue as to what is really going on here. I worked with a small town's local government years ago when the internet was just catching on and it would not be hard to imagine they don't understand. But I would expect the people running NYC to be a lot more sophisticated.

On the other hand, they are probably salivating over the money and could care less about the problems they are causing local business.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 5:45am

I dont live in NYC so i dont care about .nyc domains. You shouldnt give a flying fuck either, but you need stories to keep this website barely running apparently, so whatever..
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SmokeMagnetic (profile), 3 Apr 2012 @ 5:46am

I really dont care. Honestly. I don't
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 5:47am

What happens when people get tired of buying all those domains to protect their brands? or when people don't have enough money to keep up with all the domains being invented?

I guess people will just have to live without that protection and realize it is not that bad.
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Jeremy Lyman (profile), 3 Apr 2012 @ 5:53am

Followed to naturally absurd extremes
Shouldn't all these web pages be found on the ".internet" TLD since they're just digital representations of actual businesses? They're not IN NYC they're in cyberspaceland.

Or, if you want domains to correlate to geography, NYC should not be a TLD. It should be a subdomain like NYC.NY.US.NA.EARTH.SOL.MILKYWAY
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 5:58am

Has anybody noticed Google Play?

Why it is so damn expensive to rent movies online is $4 dollars, are they crazy or something?
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Dark Helmet (profile), 3 Apr 2012 @ 6:17am

Trademark?
Doesn't trademark protect companies from these domain gobblers? Why MUST companies get the new domain if their website domain is synergistic with their trademark? I recognize some domains may not fall under a mark, but don't you think many/most would?

Or am I fucking up trademark completely here?
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Designerfx (profile), 3 Apr 2012 @ 6:28am

creating artificial scarcity
this the good old tried and true "let's create a new scarcity".
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 6:36am

or they could just ignore it and continue with using the .com tld like everyone else does. the company i work for doesn't care whats on the other tlds in relation to our company name. Oh gee, look there is porn on your website. Uh, no mr customer, our website is .com not .dumbass
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 6:37am

Protection Money
NYC is basically replacing the protection money scheme run by the original Sicilian mafia gangs. Want to make sure no one uses a domain that should have been yours? Pay us the money and we will make sure no one (other than us!) threatens you...
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PaulT (profile), 3 Apr 2012 @ 6:51am

"NYC gets to promote it as a way for more companies in NYC to have domains, and to identify themselves as NYC-based companies."

These things are pretty much always a scam, but I do wonder how NYC companies honestly aren't already able to do this. A quick search of available .com domains containing some variation of "newyork", "nyc" or with an "ny" prefix/suffix returns a huge number of results. On top of that, how many people would really depend on the URL to tell them where the company is rather than using some location-based search tool or the text on the site itself.

I'm yet to see a new TLD that doesn't stink of being some kind of cash grab by people who don't really understand what they're doing. This does nothing to change my mind.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 6:55am

Sounds like a case for the supreme court. Government demanding you buy.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 7:00am

will then go down to .42nd/42street for example?
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Mesonoxian Eve (profile), 3 Apr 2012 @ 7:06am

"...new domain names are often a tax they must pay to protect their brand..."

Only fools believe they need to buy a domain name extension to "protect" a brand they should have established long before now.

No one's going to go, "Huh. The Giants are playing this weekend. Time to hit up giants.nyc and replace my giants.com web address I've been using for years."

I'd be more upset if this were required by NYC businesses, but as it stands, the only losers are those falsely protecting something which doesn't exist except in their minds.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 7:13am

Re: Trademark?
The issue is one of cost. Trademark does protect them except that trademark can only be enforced by legal action. Legal action that is way more expensive than simply registering the domain in the first place before the infringer can. The legal action is often more expensive than paying what a squatter asks for it which only encourages more squatting.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 7:17am

BTW
When did this tld get created?
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RyanNerd (profile), 3 Apr 2012 @ 7:29am

Same issue as with the .XXX TLD
It was not long after the .XXX TLD was being sold that vatican.xxx porn site was created. Enough with adding TLDs it is not helping the internet.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 7:30am

Virginia company offering .nyc domains
'Nuff said.
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Stuart Gray, 3 Apr 2012 @ 7:30am

Re: Followed to naturally absurd extremes
I think you mean NYC.NY.US.NA.EARTH.SOL.MILKYWAY.UNIVERSE-24SD5823CzJ4
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Paul Alan Levy (profile), 3 Apr 2012 @ 7:37am

Re: Buy Back?
I agree with this comment. Companies don't have to have web sites accessible from second-level domains in EVERY TLD available.
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The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 3 Apr 2012 @ 7:44am

Re: Could be a couple things going on here
They're a government. They're, by definition, parasites. This is entirely in their nature.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 7:45am

Businesses don't buy up ALL domain names (just think of all the country specific domains out there). This isn't a "hidden tax" it's a promotional opportunity. If a business doesn't want to purchase they are not forced to purchase. In fact I seriously doubt people in general will be seeking out this .nyc domain. Most people don't even bother typing in entire domains. They simply search in Google or just type in the "guts" of the URL like facebook instead of http://www.facebook.com.
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Jeremy Lyman (profile), 3 Apr 2012 @ 7:48am

Re: Re: Trademark?
And I think that legal action would result in being awarded the right to pay yearly fees for the domain which they'd originally passed on registering.
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Jeremy Lyman (profile), 3 Apr 2012 @ 7:48am

Re: Re: Followed to naturally absurd extremes
Damn, out top level domained again.
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New Mexico Mark, 3 Apr 2012 @ 7:55am

Re: Re: Followed to naturally absurd extremes
Oh sure... like we would ever want to do business with those scumbags in other galaxies.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 7:56am

I am not sure how you figure it out to be a tax, as it isn't obligatory, and in fact, is completely avoidable. If the unified claims against the various TLDs comes into play, trademark holders won't even have to work hard to protect themselves from false usage, as they will be able to sweep through all these vanity TLDs without issue and blow off any infringement.

Seems like you are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill here.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 8:12am

More corruption from ICANN...
...and more payoffs, bribes and kickbacks from the registrars. The extortion model used for .xxx has been shown to be immensely profitable, so now we'll see a parade of these.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 8:26am

Re: Could be a couple things going on here
"Could be that the local government doesn't have a clue as to what is really going on here."

Just because they play dumb doesn't mean they are dumb.
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weneedhelp (profile), 3 Apr 2012 @ 8:37am

Re:
"Seems like you are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill here."

Seems like someone does not work in corporate America. In corporate America these days the Brand is EVERYTHING. Anything that may tarnish that brand, must be stopped. Especially with family orientated products/brands. Imagine your kid searching for, lets say for arguments sake, Disney. So kid searches for Disney and gets directed to Disney.xxx or .NY where another user has set up porn, warez, etc. From Disneys, or any other corporate entity's perspective, that will tarnish the brand. So yes, companies will run out to protect their brand out of fear. I know the company I work for rushed out to buy the .xxx and will most likely buy the .ny as well.

Calling it a tax, IMHO, is incorrect as it appears to be more like extortion. The commercials advertising this appears to confirm my assumption.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxVL2DG5tVw
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Dave, 3 Apr 2012 @ 9:45am

Re: Could be a couple things going on here
I would say that's a near certainty (cluelessness). I have yet to see a single politician that understands current technology no matter where they are. Worse, they don't hire people who do. Or if they do, it's obvious they're not following their advice.

I can imagine the meeting. "Hey, I just thought of a way to get free money, and to dress it up as business promotion!" Every city is desperate for cash, and will get excited at things like that.

The problem should solve itself, though. Say some guy does register bloomberg.nyc or the like. Training an thumbing cellphoner to type ".nyc" instead of ".com" will be daunting enough. So if someone does manage to get to bloomberg.nyc, they will notice right away that it's crap, and they'll leave.

And Google isn't going to give good rankings to crappy imitation sites any more than they do now.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 10:57am

If I want to visit a website I dont have in my bookmarks I usually think .com, .org, .net or sometimes country specific tld. And than I simply google it.
Since most people do the same, this new moneygrabbing .nyc can be totaly ignored by the NY companys. Nobody is going to notice it anyway.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 11:06am

What makes this different than cybersquatting?
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 11:09am

"NYC gets to promote it as a way for more companies in NYC to have domains, and to identify themselves as NYC-based companies."

So whats wrong with putting 'new york' somehere on their websites logo or homepage, if their so inclined to indicate that fact?
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Yoshord, 3 Apr 2012 @ 12:21pm

Re: Re: Could be a couple things going on here
A few phones have a ".com" button with no such button for ".org" or any other TLD. Three extra keystrokes is enough to throw off any cellphoner.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 12:32pm

Re:
The government is not demanding they buy anything. Did you just read the title of the article and not anything else?

Really, a lot of this is overblown. Buying up ".xxx", for example, is just stupid unless you actually ARE a porn company, because no sane customer is going to think that's your address. ".nyc" might be a bit more of a problem for a company, since a customer might reasonably think that's the correct address... but I would argue that even that is not needed. Customers unsure of the website are going to use Google. Even if ".com" were the ONLY TLD, there's a near infinite supply of TLD's that are common misspellings of your website's name, your website's name with some extra word on the end, your website's name with some extra word in front, etc. Say you're the Rolex company, and want to make sure cusomters get to your site no matter what they type. So you remembered to claim "rolex.com" and "rolexwatch.com"... did you also remember rolex-watch.com"? How about "rolex-watches.com"? And similar names for every single TYPE of Rolex that exists? The point is, if someone wants to create a website that seems like it *could* be yours, they can, even without new TLD's.

On the other hand, adding ".nyc" as a TLD is stupid. If we want geography, we already have that ".ny.us" system that hardly anyone uses, becasue everyone wants ".com".
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 12:48pm

Re:
Did Mike grow up in New York? Or spend a significant amount of time there? I seem to remember him speaking of a fondness for authentic New York Bagels.

Assuming I'm right on the first one, I'm sure you shouldn't give a flying fuck about where you grew up, but oh well.

2/10 for the troll.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 1:24pm

Re: Re: Re: Trademark?
Exactly.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2012 @ 1:30pm

Better idea...
If they want to set something up like this the city should just get their own domain that they can control and delegate for this. Something like say:

biz-in-nyc.com

and then offer subdomains to businesses off of it.
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PaulT (profile), 3 Apr 2012 @ 1:40pm

Re:
Really, this is what you're reduced to? Poor.

I expect you to ignore every other story that's not about whatever swamp you dragged yourself out of, else that would just make you a hypocrite. You can't be from Canada, Finland, China, Brazil, Australia, France, Spain, Italy, New Zealand and all the other places Mike writes about, after all... so pick one place you care about, and keep your idiocy out of the other threads.
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Thomas Ritter, 3 Oct 2012 @ 9:04am

This post is pretty much nonsense.
There is no reason to worry about some douche buying your domain.nyc

If you are an operating business and the domain is your registered business name there is no reason to worry unless you have done nothing to establish your brand.

If your domain is a spammy exact match search term(not your business name) like manhattanbedbugcompany.com then Google is going to bitch slap you out of search along with manhattanbedbugcompany.nyc anyway.
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