India's Plan To Block .xxx Shows The Pointlessness Of Specialized TLDs

from the open-the-whole-thing-up dept

For many years, we've wondered about the wisdom of ICANN slowly doling out totally pointless new top level domains (TLDs) -- like .jobs and .mobi -- that seemed much more focused on getting companies to pay up for domains they didn't need, rather than serving any useful purpose. With the recent approval of .xxx, the same thing is happening. Various porn companies feel the need to buy up .xxx domain names, even though they already have domains they're happy with. And making things even worse is that various countries, with India taking the lead, have declared plans to block all access to the .xxx domain anyway.

Of course, this is kind of silly. It's as if they're pretending that porn doesn't exist elsewhere on the web. But, the other silly thing this highlights is the idea of slowly rolling out specialized TLDs. For years, we've been asking why ICANN doesn't just do away with specialized TLDs and let anyone register anything.anyTLD. It really would not be that difficult to set up a system to allow that, and then you get away from this idea of having to set up all these expensive special TLDs. It also makes it silly for any country to target a specific TLD to block. But, of course, it won't happen, because it doesn't involve the companies wishing to be registrars of these new TLDs getting tons of cash.

Filed Under: .xxx, blocks, domain names, india, tlds

US Gov't Interest In Domain Name Veto Represents Yet Another PR Nightmare

from the does-no-one-think-about-this-stuff dept

Last week, someone had sent over a document purporting to be from the Commerce Department advocating that ICANN's new open top level domain plan include a "government veto," that would let various government agencies seek to block a particular TLD. We didn't write about it at the time, because I couldn't confirm that it was real, and the whole thing seemed so ridiculous and short-sighted I didn't think that it could have really come out of the Commerce Department. Lesson learned: never underestimate the Commerce Department's ability to make really bad decisions.

It appears that it's now been confirmed that the Commerce Department really does want veto power for any government over a particular TLD. The reports suggest that there's concern about TLD's like ".gay" which some countries may not like, and some of the fear is driven by the .xxx debacle, when ICANN initially approved a .xxx domain, thinking it would be a "redlight district" for porn, but then after public outcry, the US government pressured ICANN to change its mind. This was especially funny because no one seemed sure whether or not .xxx was good or bad for kids. There were some people who thought .xxx would be "good" for kids by creating an area that was easy to rope off and keep kids out of. Others argued that .xxx was bad because it admitted that porn existed (or something like that).

The whole thing was a complete mess, and now the US government seems to want to repeat that process around the world.

Here's why this is about as pointless as can be: already anyone can register any URL within the existing TLDs. No government has any veto power over the part that comes before the TLD. So what difference does it make to include a veto over what comes after the TLD. In what world does it make sense to say that "gaysex.com" is okay but "sex.gay" is not? Why does the government care?

Even worse, this whole thing creates a massive unnecessary PR nightmare for the administration. Already there are concerns around the world that ICANN -- a quasi-public/private entity -- is too much in the pocket of the US government. The Commerce Department has always tried to deny this, insisting that ICANN had autonomy. And yet... in pushing for this veto power, it's admitting that it actually does want to take greater control over ICANN... and to give other governments some veto power as well.

Filed Under: commerce department, domain names, tlds, veto
Companies: icann

RIAA Threatening ICANN About .music; Claiming It Will Be Used To Infringe

from the when-you're-an-organization-of-lawyers... dept

Oh look, the RIAA is overreacting yet again -- and doing so the only way it knows how: by rolling out the legal threats. This time it's threatening ICANN over its new top level domain program, which allows all sorts of new TLDs to be registered -- including planned proposals for a .music domain. But the RIAA isn't happy about this, because:

We are concerned that a music themed gTLD will be used to enable wide scale copyright and trademark infringement.

I'm sort of at a loss how the specific TLD makes any difference whatsoever in enabling infringement. A website's a website, no matter what the TLD is. How will having a new TLD enable any more infringement at all? It seems like the real goal of this is (of course) to get ICANN to act as a copyright cop for any such TLD. Just as the RIAA has sought to make copyright cops out of ISPs, the government and other third parties, now it's seeking help from ICANN, who hopefully knows better. So it suggests that it would like to "work with ICANN... to ensure this type of malicious behavior does not occur."

And, of course, in typical RIAA fashion, if ICANN says no, the RIAA plans to go legal:

We strongly urge you to take these concerns seriously... we prefer a practical solution to these issues, and hope to avoid the need to escalate the issue further.

I'd love to see the RIAA try to "escalate the issue further." What's it going to do? Is any court really going to go so far as to say that just because something that has not yet been created, and might possibly in some weird stretch of the imagination be used for infringement, that ICANN has to block it?

Filed Under: domains, icann, music, riaa, tlds, top level domains
Companies: icann, riaa

Olympics Threaten ICANN, Saying Its Trademark Concerns Outweigh Any Benefits From New TLDs

from the sense-of-entitlement-much? dept

It's no secret that the Olympics seem to have a massive sense of entitlement when it comes to trademark issues -- getting various governments to pass laws that go way beyond trademark laws in those countries to add special protections for the Olympics, barring pretty much any unauthorized mentions outside of press coverage (and even that's a bit iffy). This is not at all what trademark law is supposed to do. Its latest move is to complain to ICANN about its new plans for a .sports top level domain, worrying that any benefits "are outweighed by the risks, harms and costs it poses to trademark owners and the public." The public? Really? Furthermore, the IOC warns ICANN that it retains the "right to proceed against ICANN for damages resulting to the IOC or the Olympic Movement from the implementation of an unlimited number of new gTLDs." Nice of them.

That article highlights that the IOC already has special deals with a number of big domain registrars blocking any registration that includes an IOC trademark -- which is highly questionable, since registrations including trademarks are very much allowed to non-trademark holders, so long as the sites aren't confusing to the public (for example, with "sucks sites" which are allowed). Hopefully ICANN stands up to bullying from the IOC which has no real case here, unless gov'ts keep passing special "for the Olympics only" abusive trademark laws.

Filed Under: icann, olympics, tlds, trademark
Companies: icann, ioc

Canon Becomes The Online Equivalent Of Madonna Or Prince, Becoming The First Single Word Domain Holder

from the no-.com-needed dept

It's been a while now since ICANN announced plans to open up the top level domain space. While we've questioned for many years the utility of still requiring limited TLDs, ICANN's plan to open up top level domains appeared to be more of a moneygrab than any real attempt at openness. That's because to get your own vanity TLD, it was going to cost somewhere between $100,000 and $500,000. Who would pay that? Apparently consumer electronics firm Canon.

Dark Helmet alerts us to the news that Canon is the first company to get its own TLD, appropriately: .canon. And, no, this doesn't mean that you'll now need to go to http://canon.canon -- but just to http://canon (that is, once it's launched, which won't be until at least late 2011). Oh, and apparently the cost has now solidified at $185,000. This really does seem like a pure vanity play. It's not like anyone was having any trouble finding Canon before, and most browsers (the vast majority of those that are actually used) will often automatically add the .com if you leave it off anyway.

There might be an argument for some sites, such as social networking sites to go down this road, so that you can set up profile pages like YourName.Facebook or whatever -- but it's hard to see the value for companies like Canon.

Filed Under: domain names, tlds
Companies: canon, icann

Is The .mobi Madness Finally Over?

from the that-would-be-nice dept

From back when it was first suggested six or so years ago, we were quite skeptical of the need for a "mobile only" top level domain called .mobi. It wasn't difficult to predict that devices would get better and wireless data services would get better, such that there would be no need for a special separate mobile web -- as everything could easily be delivered via the "regular" web. If anything, like many new TLDs, the whole thing just seemed like a cash grab, because companies would feel obligated to pay up to reserve their .mobi domain names before someone else did. And while .mobi tried to position its offering as something much more than a splinter scaled-down internet, most people pretty quickly realized that it served no reasonable purpose. To be honest, I hadn't even heard much at all about .mobi in a couple years, and as more and more people moved onto phones that could handle full webpages -- or, companies set up their own regular websites to automatically scale down for mobile browsers -- the whole concept seemed to have faded away. MobHappy reports that .mobi has been sold off to the company that also owns the rights to the .info domain -- so both can now live together in uselessness. But, best of all, as Carlo explains:

And in case you were wondering, my favorite .mobi site, flowers.mobi -- you remember, the one that was purchased for $200,000 in 2006 and was supposed to be developed into a legit site with "relevant content" -- is still just a parked domain with ads. And it's still not compliant with .mobi's rules for its sites. Big surprise there.

Filed Under: .mobi, domain names, mobile, mobile data, tlds, top level domains

Vatican Says Hold On With Those .religion TLDs

from the ICANN-has-lots-of-domain-fun dept

ICANN is having one of its regular meetings in Mexico City, the kind where proposals for all the latest and greatest top-level domains get kicked around. But some TLDs you may not be seeing soon are .catholic, or .hindu, or .churchofthefsm, after The Vatican said it didn't think it was a good idea. Essentially, they don't like the idea of some registrar or other group being given control of the TLD of a particular religious tradition, with ICANN forced to determine who gets to be the gatekeeper for each particular set of beliefs. It remains to be seen how this will fit in with ICANN's plans to open up the TLD system, which would let people register nearly any TLD they wanted (assuming they fork over the requisite amount of cash, of course). Throwing the system open would certainly seem to be setting the stage for a huge number of disputes, as companies fight over who should get to own something like .apple. By allowing .religion TLDs, ICANN could be setting things up for holy cyberwars -- but if it's going to open things up, should it be playing censor, or determining who the rightful "owner" of each religion's TLD should be?

Filed Under: religion, tlds, vatican

You Don't Need Us To .tel You This Isn't A Good Idea

from the fun-with-TLDs dept

We'd previously discussed the .tel domain, at least in terms of its sheer ridiculousness. The premise of this latest TLD is that people and companies can use it to put their contact information online. Yes, you read that correctly -- they expect people to pay up for new domains to put their phone number and email address and other contact info online. The promised twist is that a .tel domain "encodes this information into the DNS system." Instead of getting a standard web site when people visit a .tel site, they'll get one that shows contact info. Really groundbreaking stuff, isn't it? The .tel folks also say that certain directory services will be able to access this info.

The mainstream press is doing its typical job of buying into the TLD registrar's claims, without stopping to ask a couple of questions. First, why is something like this at all necessary? Second, is it really a good thing to inject people's contact information into the DNS system? DNS records have long been a favorite haunt for spammers to hunt down email addresses. Now, encouraging people to put their email addresses, IM contacts, phone numbers and physical addresses online, where they can be easily harvested, really doesn't seem like a great idea. Telnic, the company behind .tel, says it's got ways for individuals to control who can see their information (they have a video about the controls), but the system is overly complex and convoluted. In a nutshell, if you want to protect your info, your friends and contacts have to send you "friend requests", which you then need to approve if you want them to see your information. Sound familiar? That's because it's the same thing you've done in all the free social-networking and contact-management sites you've already joined, and where your contact info already lives. Furthermore, if somebody is your friend, isn't it more than likely they already have your contact info? Keeping all the contact info .tel aggregates openly available really doesn't seem like a good idea for individuals; enacting the privacy controls reinforces the utter pointlessness of .tel over already available, free, services. But who cares when the registrar is collecting all those wonderful fees?

Filed Under: .tel, icann, tlds, top level domains

Get Ready To Pay Up Just To Let People Know How To Contact Your Company

from the a-total-waste dept

We've been plenty critical of plans to set up new top level domains for URLs. Each time there's an extension (such as adding .biz, .info, etc.), all it's really meant is that companies felt forced to cough up more money to secure domains they didn't need and wouldn't use. The whole thing is a scam. However, none is as ridiculous as the decision three years ago to add a ".tel" domain, where companies could put their contact info. Yes, apparently, some company convinced ICANN to extend the TLD space for .tel domains -- knowing that tons of companies would have to pay up, just to make sure there their contact info was at company.tel, rather than something like company.com/contact/.

While we hadn't heard much about .tel over the past few years, it looks like it's now set to get moving, as early registrations have opened up, and the one company (the registrar who is going to make all the cash for this) is encouraging companies to pay up. Companies will do so, of course, because they'll feel they need to protect their brand from others -- but they won't do so because it's useful. It's not as if anyone is having any trouble finding the "contact" forms on websites that have them. And, for companies that don't have easy to find contact forms, that's usually by choice -- so it's unlikely they'll suddenly rush to put up a .tel site. This whole process makes no sense, and ICANN, who orchestrated the whole thing, should be ashamed. Basically all it's done is create a totally unnecessary situation, where for no good reasons, a ton of companies have to hand over a bunch of money to Telnic.

Filed Under: .tel, icann, tlds, top level domains
Companies: icann, telnic

ICANN Finally Relaxes TLD Requirements -- But It Still Looks Like A Money Grab

from the cluster.f**k dept

For years, we've been among those who wondered what good it did for ICANN to dribble out new top level domains (TLDs -- such as .info, .biz, .aero, etc.) every few years. For the most part, these new domains didn't do much other than force companies to buy their name on each new TLD as it was released. It basically just seemed like a way for ICANN and registrars to keep fleecing companies. Instead, we agreed with those who wondered why we had a limited number of TLDs in the first place. Why not just open it up and let any address work?

Well, now ICANN has taken a step in that direction... but, not really. It has agreed to open up the TLD system to those beyond what was approved, but anyone registering a name on a non-standard TLD will need to show a "business plan and technical capacity." Why do they need a business plan? What if they just want to set up a site for fun? Oh, right, because if you have a business plan, it means you have money to pay for stuff -- say $100,000 to $500,000?

In other words, rather than really opening up the system, it looks like yet another money grab.

In better news, however, it appears that ICANN has also decided to put in place a tiny charge for registering domain names and dropping them in the "grace period." This hopefully should greatly reduce the practice of domain hoarding (or "domain kiting" or "domain tasting" depending on who you talk to). As you may know. companies have been pulling all sorts of tricks using this grace period to register domains without ever having to pay for them. And, as a result, even companies like Network Solutions have gotten into the game, while pretending that they were holding any domain you searched for in order to "protect" you from others who might squat on the name.

Filed Under: domain kiting, domain tasting, icann, tlds, top level domains
Companies: icann