back to article 2015 will be the Year of Linux on the, no wait, of the dot-word domain EXPLOSION

With the domain-name industry abuzz thanks the introduction of hundreds of new generic top-level domains – everything from dot-art to dot-zulu – it came as a dose of cold water to find out what the rest of the world really thinks about them. Not much, it seems. Giving a keynote at NamesCon here in Las Vegas on Monday, …

  1. Mark 85

    It will be a forced explosion, not a choice.

    I would have thought that the domain companies are delusional and full of wishful thinking, but on second thought, every major (and not so major) company will have to buy the new domains just for brand security. If something like Ford.info or Ford.car fell into the wrong hands, their brand could suffer massive damage. I see these domains as a spammer/miscreant feast. For everyone else, it's trouble.

    Now if we could just force spammers to use dot-spam and miscreants to use dot-malware, all would be good but I'm probably delusional also.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: It will be a forced explosion, not a choice.

      Exactly, it's just a way to gouge the big names for more money, since the registrars hope that they'll have to buy every possible domain as 'protection'.

      Extorting protection money rarely works, though. I can imagine some creative lawyers working hard on ways to make, say, 'ford.car" impossible to use by squatters. The big brands probably have deep enough pockets to sue such scammers into bankruptcy, and although it's not normally a tactic I like, I can see that it has advantages here...

    2. Christoph

      Re: It will be a forced explosion, not a choice.

      It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,

      To puff and look important and to say: –

      "Though we know we should defeat you,

      we have not the time to meet you.

      We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

      And that is called paying the Dane-geld;

      But we've proved it again and again,

      That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld

      You never get rid of the Dane.

  2. ratfox
    Devil

    Cry me a river

    And pass the popcorn!

    Most of the population would have trouble even realizing that anything not ending in .com .net .org .gov or one of the country two-letter codes is a URL. In the first place, people are hardly ever typing a URL, preferring to ask Google to bring them to Facebook.

    1. J.G.Harston Silver badge

      Re: Cry me a river

      Most users think all URLs end in .com, never mind all the others. Too many times I've walked somebody through "blah blah dot gov dot uk... no, dot GOV dot UK... NO!!! not gov uk com, JUST B****Y GOV UK."

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
        Facepalm

        Re: Cry me a river

        J.G.Harston,

        And then, after all that hassle to get them to type the domain correctly, you find they've just stuck it into the Google search box anyway, not the address bar...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Cry me a river

        Too many times I've walked somebody through "blah blah dot gov dot uk

        I might register .dotcom or .codotuk, or face.book

        There's a list somewhere of those URLs that our brains parse differently to the way they were intended, like whorepresents.com ("who represents") and the writing implement guys on penisland.com. This will give so much more scope.

      3. Dan 55 Silver badge
        Megaphone

        Re: Cry me a river

        Perhaps the user realised that departmentname.gov.uk.com represents the real-world hierarchy perfectly.

    2. goodjudge
      Facepalm

      Re: Cry me a river

      Or in the case of my step-daughter, typing "Google" into the search box at the top-right of the screen (the one with the big 'G' next to it), THEN using the resulting site to search for "Facebook" ... I've given up on that argument.

    3. bob, mon!
      Facepalm

      Re: Cry me a river

      Many users still think a URL starts with "www" as well.

  3. Lars Silver badge
    Linux

    Linux

    I have no doubt it will all run on Linux, but still it's a bit funny that there is not one "linux" in the text.

    1. illiad

      Re: Linux

      LOL is that hook still stuck in your mouth/mouse????? LOLOLOLOL

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Linux

        Five interrogation marks… A sure sign of a diseased mind.

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Linux

          Five interrogation marks… A sure sign of a diseased mind.

          As if the diarrhea of "LOL"s didn't give it away.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How about

    Watch.Fox

    Nah,

    RacistPricks.Fox

    would be better.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Happy

      Re: How about

      How about Brummie-expert.fox then?

  5. LaeMing
    Joke

    dot.human

    corporations need not apply.

  6. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    .club isn't all bad.

    Much as I dislike this recent marketing land-grab I reckon that .club is a good alternative to .org. Though maybe even better as a SLD for a country: trainspotters.club.uk

    Those marketing examples are, in my view, anti-examples. Seriously: watch.fox as a call to action to visit the website?

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: .club isn't all bad.

      I don't think there's much in it for me, or our small company. I can just about see the attractions of dot.london and all that geographical malarkey. Personally I think it's just going to give the marketing people the warm-fuzzies - and the customers won't even notice. But you never know. And something like dot.scot (or whatever they've gone for) might go down well.

      I think there are a couple of cases where I can see things working:

      Firstly is the global megacorp. A .microsoft or a .google. Particularly useful as they've all go so many properties that it can get quite confusing - whereas office.microsoft, updates.microsoft or maps.google is dead easy to understand. I was thinking about this after receiving a communication from my bank about never trusting a URL that isn't from Natwest. Only for them to be using a marketing.rbs.com site for one of the bits - which did rather defeat the whole object.

      The problem with that is knowing when the URL is being spoofed, as you don't have a .com to look for, so if you don't know all the possible URLs in existence you can't tell when the domain name has stopped. So you might get fooled by a banking.natwest.2121213540884561512.phishingbastards.com - had natwest not registered that and just gone with dot.rbs.

      I guess the second opportunity is the curated and expensive generic domains. So if someone properly does dot.bank - and spends decent money on marketing to the general public and security. So you know that anything followed by .bank is guaranteed to work - and guaranteed that no fraudsters are accepted and all (or the vast majority) of your country's banks have actually signed up. But that's quite a lot of if...

    2. Gartal

      Re: .club isn't all bad.

      I thought we had .asn for that (association)

    3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: .club isn't all bad.

      I reckon that .club is a good alternative to .org

      Why? What advantage does it have?

  7. Jim 59

    Name proliferation was obviously just a money-grab. Is anybody really surprised that firms did not fancy it ? What are they buying, the name you just thought of this week ? Then you will think of an even better one next week, and expect them to buy that too ?

    "Germfree.Kitchen" might seem memorable, until it is jostling with a thousand other .kitchen names, "safe.kitchen", "clean.kitchen", "modern.kitchen" etc. etc. On the other band, ".co.uk" and ".com" convey some status, reassurance and recognition.

    Good article, nifty survey, terrible headline.

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      "Germfree.Kitchen" might seem memorable

      But surely it's of interest only to idiots who aren't capable of remembering it anyway?

      ("Germfree". What, did you displace them with fairies and unicorns? Is this kitchen located in the sun?)

  8. Neil Barnes Silver badge

    consumers would think a .brand domain is more secure

    The opposite, if anything:

    cocacola.com; long established, well known name, must have had it years = trust

    cocacola.cocacola; wtf? An obvious attempt to piggyback cc's brand = avoid

    (other soft drinks are available).

    This was a bloody stupid idea that should have been strangled at birth. As a consumer (I hate that word) I want to know (a) if it's a brand-owner's site and (b) where it's likely to ship from. Other than that, Google/Bing/DuckDuckGo etc.

    1. Tom_

      Re: consumers would think a .brand domain is more secure

      Must register .cola. Just think Coca Cola, Panda and Pepsi will all want to buy names on there and I'll be rich!

      This just reminds me of some idiots I briefly lived with in 2000. They'd just realised you could buy domain names and were speculatively buying absolute shit like letsallgoshoppingtogether.co.uk in the misguided belief that someone would buy it off them later for vast sums.

  9. Admiral Grace Hopper

    stupid.c*nts

    The only tlds that I might feel the urge to register would probably be refused on the grounds of taste.

  10. Spiracle

    No doubt locksmiths will be bidding for bol.locks. It'll be memorable.

  11. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Happy

    An Idea

    Maybe set up a new domain for 'Call me Dave' dave.cameron.buffoon

    1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: An Idea

      Hi Dave, Nice to see you reading here. and thanks for the downvote.

      Joke alert, beacuse i think you need it.

  12. Dominion
    Facepalm

    Nobody Cares!

    Does anybody actually really care about domain names? If I want to find something, I google it and click on the link. Half of the grab seems to be getting companies to register the same name to dozens of different GTLDs, pointing back to their original .com.

    1. Fading

      Re: Nobody Cares!

      Agreed. Now how do I register internet.meh?

  13. batfastad

    Irrelevant

    Most people just search for stuff on dogpile, lycos etc now anyway.

    The new domains that describe the vague function/activity of the site is not a bad idea though. I've always thought that having the top-level of domains categorised by country, on an internationally connected network that spans borders and governments, was a little strange. ISO language codes may have made a bit more sense.

    One thing I do think though is that anyone applying to become a registrar of a new .tld would have to make domains publicly available. Want .google, then you must offer registrations under it. That would ensure that new domains were mainly function/activity/category based rather than corporate brand holding.

    I appreciate a good money-making scheme as much as anyone, so I'm not going to blame ICANN for wanting moar. But I would like to know where all the dosh from the non-refundable application fees will go/is going/has gone. I'm guessing that's a substantial windfall over their previous funding.

    I presume ICANN were hoping that any mega-globo-corp would panic and buy their .brand. Typically though these things work the other way, since tehre's a high barrier to entry for a .brand it's unlikely squatters will ever buy it. And if they did the mega-globo-corp could just sue the squatters into oblivion. So actually no real point in registering. You see the same with ltd.uk .plc.uk etc, noone bothers to register them because noone else can register them.

    </ramble>

  14. Efros

    Quantum Jump domain

    .Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu

    For Lone Rangers only

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Happy

      Re: Quantum Jump domain

      Bless you!

      Do you need a clean hanky?

  15. DJV Silver badge
    Devil

    Is there...

    ...a dot talkingbollocks, especially for marketdroids and clueless* politicians?

    (* sorry, redundant term there)

  16. TechicallyConfused

    How to bring chaos to a well ordered world

    'nuff said!

  17. admiraljkb

    "Brand names online can build trust and security." ???

    >"Brand names online can build trust and security."

    Say what? Most of the time now, corporations have already outsourced their online marketing presence to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc etc. So people won't be going to .cocacola, they're already going to socialmediaofyourchoice/cocacola, and even that isn't a direct path, mostly due to so many people always googling the company, then going to one of the top links. We're starting to hit a point now where even the .com addresses have substantially less value then they once did just a few years ago. If it was 1997, then all these boutique names might make sense, but I personally don't see the point of adding much more than ".club" for non-prof clubs (and that one is a maybe after 20 years of people just going to .com first, and then .org), and then ".xxx" for well, you know, wink wink and a nudge.

    Most average users have no clue whether that link is .com, .org, .co.uk, or .whatever. Worse than that, most average users don't care as they can't be hassled with security. This describes a large chunk of my own family unfortunately who are already ripe for security exploits as a result. Increasing numbers of boutique domains just exasperates the problem.

  18. breakfast Silver badge

    Email me at... oh, wait.

    One thing that the people selling these don't mention is that if you have an email address that's along the lines of me@myawesome.newtld it is going to be rejected by every single email sign-up form you ever encounter. I had enough trouble when I had a .info address and that has been around for ten years now.

    Almost all email validation regular expressions expect a standard TLD.

  19. mevets

    Aphorism (meme)

    “We don't do anything new in computing. We just rename the old stuff.”

    - Grace Hopper (attributed)

  20. Colin Tree

    hidden domain

    If I registered http://.colin.org/ would it be a hidden domain name and not found in a DNS lookup ?

    How good is that !!

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: hidden domain

      If I registered http://.colin.org/ would it be a hidden domain name and not found in a DNS lookup ?

      Your question isn't clear. You can't register "http://.colin.org/" because that's not a valid gTLD. (It's not a valid URL, either. I'm not sure what it's supposed to be.) And org is already a TLD.

      And what's a "hidden domain"? If you register a gTLD, it'd get added to the root nameservers just like any other TLD. They'd direct DNS queries to the authoritive server, which would resolve the name. Assuming it was valid.

  21. Damon Hastings

    I would seriously think twice about entering my credit card info into one of these new domains. I can trust that "toyota.com" is actually run by Toyota. But "toyota.cars"? Who will be running that one? Russian hackers? Some kid in Schenectady? Phishers will have a field day with this.

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