Get ready for the coming Top Level Domain Wars!
Our friends over at ICANN are at it again. Move over .com and .org and get ready for a nearly infinite variety of new web addresses ending in words like .food, .sports and .atlanta. Yesterday, the main oversight agency of Al Gore’s glorious invention approved the most sweeping changes to the network’s address system since its creation.
According to new rules unanimously passed, any company, organization or country will soon be able to apply for a new top level domains. This certainly has the potential to smooth the way for Web addresses that end in city names, brands and generic words. However, I think it is a safe bet that we will see a large rush of spammers and other malefactors adopting these new TLDs in a similar fashion to the addition of .biz in 2001 and .mobi in 2005. Let’s face it, this will create a host of new ways to exploit the Web addressing system and start a wave of legal skirmishes over applications to register trademarks.
Aside from the potential spam issues, rolling out something like this also has the potential to cause heavy confusion in the minds of internet users. For all the Go/Help/Sales people, just consider how tough it can be to tell a client how to get to their my.memberclicks.com address.
“The new addresses would addle and elude average Internet users. If you have hundreds or thousands of new suffixes, they are not that easy to remember. I just see it as confusing.” - Ron Jackson, Editor of Domain Journal
“The potential for mass confusion and fraud and phishing from these new domains seems to be what the primary impact will be for consumers. I fail to see the positive for consumers in this. It’s all downside.” - Lauren Weinstein, Internet activist and co-founder of People for Internet Responsibility
One question is how much the new top-level domains will cost. ICANN officials estimated that prices would start in the low six figures, so the organization can recoup its expenses for developing the new service. The ICANN board said it would seek public comment on the guidelines before its next major meeting in November and are working towards accepting the first applications in the second quarter of 2009.
Talk about a real estate boom. Going from the existing 21 top level domains to potentially thousands will be the biggest expansion to the net in the last 40 years. If you have an opinion about this, let ICANN know!
ICANN
4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330
Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6601
USA
Phone: +1.310.823.9358
FAX: +1.310.823.8649
