John Perry Barlow of the Electronic Frontier foundation was the keynote speaker at the Dot Nxt show this morning and pretty much blasted the new gTLD program, ICANN and domain names in general.
“”I can’t see how expanding the domain space its going to be to the benefit of the internet.”
“ICANN is going to be sitting on a billion dollars from application fees, escrow fees, and I don’t see how that is going to anyone much good”
“However I understand that the train may have already left the station so I maybe left with just complaining about it.”
Mr. Barlow then went on to say his organization hasn’t participated in the ICANN process up to now because it so overly complicated and hard to understand.
“ICANN is impenetrable because it puts out some much information.”
“I don’t think ICANN is serving a useful purpose.”
Mr. Barlow then asked “how many times do you actually type in a domain name into your browser.”
“I don’t think people type domains into the broswer they go to the search engines to find out what they want”
“I don’t think Domain Names are necessary”
“I would like to eliminate domains all together let everyone have an IP address and let the search engines sort it out.”
“I prefer to see a system where you just use a search engine.”
Mr. Barlow really didn’t explain why he wanted to give control over navigation of the Internet to the “search engines” which of course we know is dominated by Google, and Bing-Yahoo which control 97% of the US market.
I told Mr. Barlow in the session that I owned 75,000 domain names and generated over 15,000,000 visitors a month informing him that people do in fact type in domain name.
“What do you do with all those domain names?”, he asked
“Monetize them like Google and Bing do with their search traffic by serving up the sames type of ads you will see on the search engines” I answered.
“Well frankly I wish your business didn’t exist” Mr. Barlow said
“Buy me out” I responded.
I think Barlow is a good intentioned guy but clearly doesn’t under the domain space.
Do these guys get paid to talk?
IP addresses and hands it over to private search engines, where does this guy buy his stuff, sure is some good stuff! Another poor sport, who was late to the game, shame!
the best way to allow the big companies to always be at the top search results and the small companies (or single persons) to be at the result page number 123,475,838 or 735,237,965
Where the hell do you get this kind of guys….
Moron in the making!!!
I guess we don’t need names, just use our SS # and do a search on the #
“Well frankly I wish your business didn’t exist” Mr. Barlow said
“Buy me out” I responded.
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Priceless!!!
Yes, it is time to build a New Internet – the U.S. FCC is on the right track – Some people will be fortunate and connect…
Forgive the brashness, but that is just a naive statement he made. So rather than going to facebook.com for example you would either go to Google, then “google” Facebook, pick the top search result and get there that way? Ya, that makes sense?!!? Or just direct someone to their IP. “Hey, found a cool site!”…”Oh yeah, what?”….”69.63.189.11/coorslight”…”Wait, slow down, what was the site again?”
How can anyone be from an organization that has Electronic and Frontier in the name, yet have no clue about how IPs resolve and the actual need for domain names? He must work for the government on the side.
Quote: “Well frankly I wish your business didn’t exist” .
First he says folks don’t type in domains and when you inform him they do, he’s against it? Why? Did he give a reason?
I hope you get your money back attending this Dot Moron conference.
and, after all, also the IP number IS an domain name
an NN.NN.NNN domain name with a .NNN TLD 🙂
glad I didn’t go to the conference…would have been a nightmare listening to these guys. Some people will NEVER understand and they probably don’t want to start.
I told Mr. Barlow in the session that I owned 75,000 domain names …
“What do you do with all those domain names?”, he asked
“Monetize them …” I answered.
“Well frankly I wish your business didn’t exist” Mr. Barlow said
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What if OBAMA said….he preferred your “business” did not exist…??
Do you think the card-carrying ISOC and ICANN insiders are happy about people having 75,000 domains ? or 500,000 domains ? or a Top Level Domain ?
Anyone want to bet the barriers to entry go UP and UP and the filtering and intercepting in Set.Top.Boxes increases…??
Watch for SWARMING from the Internet.Community
Search engines are owned and operated by private companies. ICANN for the good and bad, is a non profit with allot of experience and participation from worldwide nations. How can one company screw with your life? you can ask the many that are at the mercy of Google, Apple, or Microsoft. But lately domains made a huge comeback that was overlooked by the domain community. This is from a recent Wired article
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/07/sidestepping-apple-from-amazon-to-conde-companies-rethink-their-app-strategies/
“We wanted to let you know that we’ve updated our Kindle app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. The big change is that you can now use the Kindle app to read over 100 Kindle newspapers and magazines including the Economist, as well as share favorite passages from your reading via Facebook and Twitter. In order to comply with recent policy changes by Apple, we’ve also removed the “Kindle Store” link from within the app that opened Safari and took you to the Kindle Store. You can still shop as you always have – JUST OPEN SAFARI AND GO TO http://WWW.AMAZON.COM/KINDLESTORE. If you want, you can BOOKMARK THAT URL. Your Kindle books will be delivered automatically to your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, just as before.”
Isn’t every search engine on a domain name?
John Perry Barlow – just another jealous sucker
he overfills himself with hatred for domain owners. it is not allowable for officials of his rank. he should think how to do his duties properly and not think how to harm all those “sleazy” domainers when things work fine without him
“he overfills himself with hatred for domain owners. it is not allowable for officials of his rank.”
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For those not familiar with John Perry Barlow – He represents a somewhat typical OLD SCHOOL – so-called Internet Pioneer
There are many inconsistencies in the OLD SCHOOL crowd. They claim to NOT be part of The.Establishment, but they jump at the chance to hob nob with NSA CIA and other government officials. Harvard loves them. The OLD SCHOOL often has enough money to sit around in the sidewalk cafes of San Francisco for the rest of their life. They denounce YOU making a buck and demand $50,000 per day fees to speak at conferences.
Their money goes to good causes, YOUR money is EVIL.
It goes on and on.
Domainers are an easy target. Domainers are sort of honest, saying “We are in this to make money”. The OLD SCHOOL is in it to help people communicate.
They fashion themselves as Clerics and High-Priests. Their feet do not touch
planet Earth, in their opinion.
^ I really wish I knew who you were… ^
I’m betting I might recognize your name, via common chatter.
Also, let us not forget that tech couldn’t be any more clueless when it comes to the ‘user’ aspects of the intrawebz.
One area where domainers deserve credit is that they’re usually pretty up front about being technologically illiterate (or, marginally literate). Tech, on the other hand, thinks they know everything about anything touched by the internet, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
There are two sides to the web.
There is the foundational side- that’s where tech rules the day- but then there’s the ‘use’ side. The ‘facilitating’ side. The side that relates to breating, organic life forms sitting in front of the computer, employing the internet to do something useful to their lives. Often times, tech guys are clueless when it comes to bettering that side of the game. If it were up to them, we’d still be running everything off command lines. Elegance, and all…
Listen to tech on stuff that tech does well. The bricks and sticks of the internet. Completely ignore the opinions of tech on anything relating to user experience (such as- “we should get rid of domain names…” I could tell you that came from a tech guy without your even mentioning who said it).
It ain’t their bag.
“just another jealous sucker”
true, he has missed the opportunity to buy few dozen of premium .co domains (like cinima.co electromenager.co grubbellis.co bingg.co kfcmalaysia.co mashkanta.co szeed.co) and now he is so angry that wants see the web and all domain names die soon! 🙂
“If it were up to them, we’d still be running everything off command lines.”
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Jon Postel fancied ASCII and avoided HTML and media-based WEB pages, etc.
“It’s perfectly appropriate to be upset. I thought of it in a
slightly different way–like a space that we were exploring and, in
the early days, we figured out this consistent path through the
space: IP, TCP, and so on. What’s been happening over the last few
years is that the IETF is filling the rest of the space with every
alternative approach, not necessarily any better. Every possible
alternative is now being written down. And it’s not useful.”
— Jon Postel
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The bottom line is the Czars and Clerics do not want to give people (individuals) a License.to.print.Money {They reserve that privilege for themselves}
After reading this, I looked at eff.org for the first time, and while I agree with a lot of the foundation’s core principles, Mr. Barlow’s statements to you are pretty off-putting. Just like the ACLU, it seems like they are freedom lovers only to a certain extent.
“I would like to eliminate domains all together let everyone have an IP address and let the search engines sort it out.”
While we are at it, why don’t we just convert addresses, business names, etc. into binary code because it sure is easier to remember long lists of digits instead of a proper name.
Scratch that, let’s just convert all of our speech into clicks and whistles…now that makes a lot of sense. Who needs the alphabet anyway?
John Perry Barlow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation: “I Don’t Think Domain Names Are Necessary”
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Yep, Domain Names are not needed.
DHT Handles will likely be one of the P2P replacement technologies (not IP Addresses)
One of the reasons the Czars and Clerics are letting the unwashed masses into their TLD game is because it likely will disappear. They are not stupid.
MHB you gave the guy an insight how business is done nowdays.. And it seems he is not happy about it.. Though i get the feeling that JPB is still sorta embraces the ICANN mission and things go different in the real world.. He has one valid point about who types in a domain name nowdays..
Sure enuff i see people typein the domain name.. i also see tons of people who use google.
Infact i see people who type google.com into the google search bar.. and i know several business owners who navigate that way to their own company page and bitch when it is not the first link…..
to Hand.Gun Sales Guy “Well frankly I wish your business didn’t exist”
Maybe he’s right? The internet, and how we collectively interface with and use it, could be vastly different that most of us could possibly imagine in less than a decade.
It’s a good thing I only own domains that I picked up for the reg fee…
“Maybe he’s right? The internet… could be vastly different…”
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Yep!!! Sort of like vinyl phonograph records migrating to CDs and DVDs
Domainers will be cashing out. Sell those VHS and Betamax tape cassettes
8-Track tape decks in cars will vanish
Maybe all of .COM could be moved under .MUSEUM ?
Kids will look back to this era and shake their heads in amazement.
Adults paid how much ? for ASCII strings ?
@Bahamas.VC
20 years ago I was at music conference in NYC where some “experts” flatly predicted that live concerts would disappear due to pay-per-view concerts.
Before that people predicted that pills would replace food.
Before that people predicted that television would wipe out movie theaters.
Here’s my prediction: See how long telephone numbers have lasted? That’s how long dotCom addresses will last.
Last year, during what my company calls “The wikileaks fiasco”, John Perry Barlow uttered the absolute most moronic statement about the entire affair:
“The problem with cyberspace is that it is mostly controlled by private corporations, like Amazon, Paypal and easyDNS” (of course, he, like everybody else, had us mixed up with everydns, but that’s beside the point).
It was a testament to how utterly clueless the man is. I really don’t understand why having the ability to write song lyrics that acid heads and stoners “dig” qualifies somebody to be held in some kind esteem to comment on technology trends.
@David J Castello
Many moon ago,they say all the marathon winners are from USA and Europe and they even say Chinese cannot play basketball and best of all
White man cannot jump!!
Rice is only eaten by Chinese says Uncle Ben.
We should go back to the Yellow Pages, or better yet, just let the phone operator find everything for us, “Sarah, get me Floyd’s barber shop, will ya’?”
“I really don’t understand why having the ability to write song lyrics that acid heads and stoners “dig” qualifies somebody to be held in some kind esteem to comment on technology trends.”
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1. You have to hang out with The.Right.People in the San Francisco (Sausolito) area.
2. Money
3. Barlow was a good friend of John F. Kennedy Jr.
4. Money
5. WIRED Magazine
6. Harvard Berkman
7. It is not what you know but who you know
Wow, this guys works for the EFF – an organization centered around the internet and technology – but has no idea about how domain names work.
Wow.
Another bozo.
So with the new IPv6 addressing system this will be the most valuable IP address.
::ffff:4a7d:2768
( Google’s )
LOL
“Well frankly I wish your business didn’t exist”
Well frankly, I wish the Grateful Dead didn’t exist, either.
Desparate Silver Tongue empty vacuum politician types – enough of that in DC these days
@David
“Here’s my prediction: See how long telephone numbers have lasted? That’s how long dotCom addresses will last.”
I Used to think:
.com = 1-800
.net, .org = everything but 1-800
How long has it taken for the public to accept non 1-800 – i.e forced to after 20+ years – and we are not even taking about letters yet that make up a true billboard brand.
You hit it hard on the nail – not for a long long time.
John Perry Barlow: very much the purist mathematician thinking, an Alan Turing Logic.
He is absolutely right “Logically” Fortunately we cut the umbilical.
So naive it’s hard to believe he works on the Interwebs. What an uninformed statement that goes against the grain of the EFF.
i think all these statement by speakers show one thing – ICANN has not been effective in communicating its resposnsibility, or mission or policies.
or being at all relevant in the real word.
“i think all these statement by speakers show one thing – ICANN has not been effective…”
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Verisign likely thinks ICANN (IANA) has been very effective
Many of the ICANN Staff likely think the Non-Profit corporation has compensated them at 5 to 10 times their market value. The reserve funds could carry them for years. (Hiding under their desks?)
The IP Address RIR (Gold.Mines) likely think ICANN (IANA) has been very effective feeding them billions of dollars in spectrum assets. Those transfers
do not show up on either corporation’s Balance Sheets.
A couple of Registrars likely think ICANN has been very effective.
About 50 to 60 people in the world likely think ICANN has been very effective
for THEIR Internet.Community. They likely view all others as losers.
Thanks for playing…
it’s pretty sad when people are putting down this man who has been a part of the internet’s development since it’s beginning, and no doubt before many of the these commenters were born.
i hate to to break it to you kiddies but most of the most important machines on the networks you use are still run via the command line. and ip addresses no less important today than they were 20 years ago.
graphics, domains and all the stuff you think is so “essential” is anything but. however it’s a great way to keep users ignorant of the internals and make come great coin from their ignorance.
time to upgrade. “you need this.” cha-ching!
you’ll never understand how these things work and we like it that way. you’ve got money and we’ve got stuff to sell you.
but barlow is not out to make coin from the ‘net. not to my knowledge anyway.
from a functional perspective, domain names are not necessary. it’s only to make money that we have them. zero cost to create, pennies to maitain and we can sell them for huge profit. why not? license to print money.
in truth, anyone can set their own aliases for any ip or any registered name on their computer or phone. for free. no domain system needed. but let’s not think about that. let’s spend some cash!
hello icann, where do i sign up? 185k? no worries.
in sum, there’s a reason we have telephone numbers, not telephone “names”. barlow saying everyone should at least have a telephone number sounds reasonable to me. imagine having no phone number. if you want to be truly connected you need a network number. when are the new users of the internet gonna wake up and realise that? maybe that day is coming?