MIT just published a post ripping ICANN for what it calls ICANN’s Boondoggle referring to the new gTLD program.
“ICANN is itself a monopoly. It has the freedom to mint new gTLDs and incorporate them into the “root zone file,” the master list that matches human-readable URLs (such as www.technologyreview.com) with the numeric Internet Protocol addresses that are used to route packets between computers. And it’s employing this freedom to orchestrate the biggest land rush in the history of the Internet.”
“During a four-and-a-half-month application period that closed on May 30, ICANN collected more than 1,900 proposals for new gTLDs. ”
“As expected, hundreds of companies applied for gTLDs corresponding to their brand names—.aetna, .barclays, .mcdonalds, and the like. ”
“But applicants also asked for the rights to hundreds of generic terms, such as .health, .mail, .music, and .pizza.”
“There is no general shortage of Web addresses. If there were, we might have seen businesses flocking to other new domains ICANN has already introduced over the past decade.”
“ICANN says it’s opening up these domains to promote competition and choice in the domain-name industry. But confusion and profiteering are the more likely results. Say you come across a URL like shoes.buy. How will you know who’s behind it? Amazon, Google, and three other companies have applied for control of the .buy domain; whoever gets it could sell subdomains to someone else.”
“For example, Amazon could sell footwear at shoes.buy and charge the Gap for the rights to shirts.buy.”
“Or say you’re planning to visit Hungary. Should you go to Budapest.hu, currently the city’s official site, or risk going to a new site like tourism.budapest and hope that you don’t stumble onto a phishing site in the process?”
“ICANN could also cash in. ”
“Plenty of names are in contention—11 companies applied for .home and another 11 for .inc, for example—and in many cases where the parties can’t settle their competing claims themselves, ICANN plans to hold auctions for the domains and pocket the proceeds. That’s on top of the $357 million in application fees that the Los Angeles–based organization has already collected, at a whopping $185,000 per domain. ”
“What amazing new benefits will all this spending bring to consumers? None whatsoever, at least in the eyes of venture investor Esther Dyson, who served as chair of ICANN from its inception in 1998 until 2000. ”
“Opening up the Internet to a flood of new gTLDs might also have the unintended consequence of making consumers even more likely to stop thinking about URLs at all and turn instead to Google, Bing, or Baidu to locate the sites they need.
“It’s already easy to surf the Web without ever typing a URL. As Dyson points out, “the search bar and the address bar are almost merging in browsers like Chrome.” As fewer and fewer consumers resort to direct navigation, owners of new gTLDs could soon find that they have “spent large amounts of money on something that is fundamentally worthless”
Ouch
Boondoggle I guess is the mainstream word for clusterfuck.
I learned something today. This only reinforces my own personal view.
Some people ran to the pharmacy for the anti-acid…
I also had to google that word…
They need a serious outside intervention.
What a one sided, ill conceived view of the world. MIT ought to be ashamed.
Ester Dyson seems to be happy to make a name for herself by throwing rocks at ICANN. Why not participate in a proactive manner?
MIT should know better than to roll out an industry has-been with an axe to grind as their only reference material.
There is plenty of upside – but that wont create a stir…
“clusterfuck”
– I do not think there is a better word –
I am not a naysayer – just a realist.
When you put non-business types in charge – this is what you get – same with the fact that Tech.com – owned by a university – likely by donation – is still not operational.
So does this mean that you can still apply for .MIT?
The writer, like Esther Dyson, insultingly believes that most people are really just stupid.
“Or say you’re planning to visit Hungary. Should you go to Budapest.hu, currently the city’s official site, or risk going to a new site like tourism.budapest and hope that you don’t stumble onto a phishing site in the process?”
Wow, that’s scary stuff. Better keep those MIT internet users off the web entirely, or they may stumble onto a phishing site.
“There is no general shortage of Web addresses. If there were, we might have seen businesses flocking to other new domains ICANN has already introduced over the past decade.”
That says it all for me.
The general public will not readily grasp complete words moving to the right side of the dot. It will be confusing. A setback, not an advancement. Like subdomains. Simplicity and logic typically win out. The new tld paradigm is neither simple, nor logical … so adoption at this point will be a long uphill climb.
Hello MHB
There are two sides to every Dot. The left side needs to be Strong and memorable. The right side of the Dot needs to be rooted in the .COM Channel of Top Tier World class Traffic Patterns, for optimal return on your development capital , is this really so hard?? OK
lets play a game here. Of all the extensions which comprises the Worlds Highest Repeat Traffic Patterns?? If you are bright you have the answer, if you dont know, you need seriuos help, and this is not the business for you.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
NotComs will be thrust upon internet users by big brands and Google like never before.
People adapt, and change behavior traits, it is a distinctive human ability.
@ Rick Schwartz
”
Boondoggle I guess is the mainstream word for clusterfuck.
I learned something today. This only reinforces my own personal view.
”
My personal view is you should apply to become their new president. You might have to pass a police check, but that wouldn’t be a problem would it?
For whose benefit is ICANN overseeing the Internet? The main beneficiary of ICANN’s decisions seem to be – big surprise – ICANN itself.
When ICANN agreed to give Verisign/NetSol a perpetual monopoly on dot-com, did it benefit the tens of millions of owners of dot-com domains who were then forced to pay inflated prices for their domains? No. But it benefited ICANN who arranged a hefty cut for themselves.
When ICANN agreed to put the .NET contract out for bid, who benefited the most? ICANN, who increased their piece of the action to $.75 per domain registration.
Now with the new gTLD program, is ICANN responding to a huge public clamor for more domain extensions? No. They just decided to create huge new territories on the Internet and auction off the rights to that territory keeping all the money for themselves. A few companies may successfully exploit that territory for their own benefit as well, but so far ICANN is reaping all the benefit.
The purpose of the domain name system is to simplify Internet navigation. As the MIT paper points out releasing thousands of new extensions can only serve to further confuse Internet navigation. This does not benefit the average consumer. But ICANN will already have banked their hundreds of millions of dollars.
What could ICANN have been doing instead of devoting years of effort to trying to launch the new gTLD program in the face of a public outcry of bitter opposition?
It could have been sticking to its knitting and focusing on its core responsibilities to run a secure and stable Internet.
Who actually owns a domain name? Is it the company listed as the registered owner? The person listed as the admin contact? The person with login control over the domain’s account at the registrar? What if these are three different people?
What if your domain is stolen? How do you prove it is yours? What certificate of ownership can you show that you own the domain when there are no certificates of ownership?
What if someone claims that a domain you bought was stolen? How can you prove that it wasn’t stolen? How do you know that the previous owner legitimately transferred the domain?
What if your registrar is contacted by a different registrar saying that one of your domains is stolen and requesting it back? Did you know that this decision is made, and the domain possibly removed from your account, without any say on your part?
ICANN has put in place a UDRP process that authorizes the involuntary transfer of domain names, and then neglected this program for 10 years. It sets out policies for panelists to follow but then has no mechanism to ensure that panelists adhere to those policies. It accredits UDRP providers without requiring that they be placed under contract. It sets up a system that encourages forum shopping and pro-complainant bias and does nothing to correct it.
The existing name spaces overseen by ICANN are neglected. ICANN needs to pay attention to the fundamentals of running a stable and secure Internet. But rather than focus on doing its job, ICANN is going after the money and adding thousands of more extensions onto an already unstable foundation.
Read a similar article at DNJournal, but they have removed the ability to post comments. As such, I will no longer waste my time going there. Am hoping Ron Jackson reads this and corrects soon.
Gtlds are destined to go the same way as did .Aero, .Museum, .Travel and .Coop.
This is starting to get painfully obvious, no?
Former –
Then start your own publication and cater on the head cases that come on board – that obviously howl and bark at the moon every night (to quote another guy that comments regularily) 🙂
To your point I agree – But registrars for many of these new non.coms will do well – albeit there will be a very small aftermarket.
MIT — so smart and yet the people who wrote this are so dumb. I have seen some of the most intelligent people on Earth fall for a Ponzi scheme or incapable of tying their shoe laces. Bottom line is “this time is different” Only it really is.
ICANN has launched TLDs in the past that completely sucked, or were really expensive, or had terrible rules and yes – surprise, surprise, nobody adopted them. That does not indicate there is no demand. It just indicates that people thought it was safer to buy names on the secondary market in dot com.
But watch what happens this time when great strings come out unrestricted or free (and run by Google, Amazon, Uniregistry and Donuts) .. There is going to be an epic serving of crow on the tables of the doubters in a few years time.
The world is a-changin and once again there will be those who make it happen, those who watch it happen and those who WONDER WHAT HAPPENED!
All this story tells me is that some of the brightest Mensa superstars in the room will be in the last tranche.
Mark A wrote:
> But watch what happens this time when great strings come
> out unrestricted or free
>
Getting one of the new gTLDs for free is one thing. Creating great content for it, and then getting the word out about it, in a sea of hundreds of thousands of others trying to do the same, is a whole ‘nother ballgame.
Nothing “epic” is going to happen here. New .COM websites pop up all the time. (Let alone new .ME, .TV, .NET, etc, sites.) The old established .COM websites with great content, don’t lose visitors because of this.
Being ‘first’ definitely matters, and these new gTLDs are about as far away from ‘first,’ as one can get. MIT is spot on with this article.
1900 strings Grim. That’s the first time there have been anywhere near that number. All pushing the same direction. This time “is” different. Com won’t go away. It will get marginalized tho.
@Mark A
If only there were 190,000, instead of just 1900. Think how great that would be. Because everyone knows more is always better. That’s why I prefer to invest in aluminum, while the suckers invest in gold.
Former DNJournal Reader
Don;t know how long you have been reading DNjournal but Ron has never allowed comments on his posts