ICANN Votes Monday to Grant Trademark Domain Suffixes

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is meeting in Singapore on Monday to vote on a new naming system for the top level domains. Companies like Microsoft, Apple Google, Facebook, Ford or any of the upper tier corporations will now be able to use their corporate name over the standard .com if the measure passes.

It will cost a company $185,000 just to apply and there are a number of criteria that must be met before ICANN will give the nod for a firm to own the domain name of its choice.
 
I will have to research this more outside of the article but in some ways this seems like this will give major corporations even more of a foothold over small business in the way of online media. I fully agree with stopping the domain squatting but still it seems this only favors major corporations.
 
I can just see the new websites now:

"www.macosx.apple"

"xbox.live"

"microsoft.live"

or... "live.microsoft" or "xbox.microsoft"

"windows.microsoft" or "windows.msft"

"gmail.google"

They should allow this too:

"forums.hardocp"
 
Oh, actually for Apple, should be something like:

"ipod.apple"

"iphone.apple"

"osx.apple"

"mac.apple"

IBM is probably simplest one:

"powerpc.ibm"

"watson.ibm"

"os2.ibm"

"lotus.ibm"
 
I was just thinking, it is already far too easy for new startup companies to make it big and compete with mega corporations like Microsoft and Apple.

What we really need, are tools that give these corporations network preference and online media advantages that only the giants can afford to help make them more competitive.

After all, consumers get confused when they have too many options, and as we all know a capitalist economy works best when there are as few options as possible to limit competition.

So I give this my full support, and hope the one-world-government will help implement this ASAP!
 
ICANN May 2011 working draft

What will be the next big .thing? You name it!
What follows your dot? Define yourself!

I'm curious to see what the big orgs will do. .com is so ingrained in the non-tech public as a language convention when talking about the internet.

Corps will need to be careful and clever. They have to simultaneously promote their trademark, allow for future growth, and make it simple language-wise for easy memory recall. I could see go.windows for example, as both a marketing slogan and its related URL.
 
IMHO, this is going to make the internet even more of a mess than it already is. What the heck is the deal with allowing other languages than English? They should keep things more unified and simple, now however, people will have to figure out how to type characters is another language to visit some website hosted in some country. I don't know what ICANN is thinking other than succumbing to the pressure of big corporations and big paychecks (greed?).
 
So it's http://www.com.microsoft now? ^-^

I guess it can work, but only if the system can still redirect to the new URLs when you type the old "microsoft" or "microsoft.fr" names in your browser, so you don't have to remember it's now "home.ms" or "accueil.fr.ms" or whatever.

Still, it is likely that except for brand new companies, the new domains will exist on top of the old ones, because there are millions of legacy URLs and apps that will be broken otherwise. Even with a redirection mechanism, you can't hope to serve all the existing cases.

I also wonder which country will have legal control over these new gTLDs, like the U.S. feds are able to redirect .com sites to pages of their choice.
Also, what about companies with identical names or initials? Will it be up to the first to register the domain, like the current .com situation? Not much of an improvement there.

I can see why companies just as big as countries would want the gTLDs to reflect their global presence but they can hardly be called generic TLDs anymore if they are specific to a company.
 
it is going to slow down searching and creating more top level domains is just a big problem waiting to happen.
 
My first reaction to this is, "no way, corporations are taking over the Internet!"

Then, after thinking about it for a minute, I have to wonder, "why not?" Top level domains as they stand are superfluous. They serve no usable technical purpose. The existing categories are arbitrary and often overlap: e.g. companies in the US should be using .us but most us .com. The existing rules are not enforced: .ly is a popular domain just because it makes a common English word ending. New domain proposals like .xxx and .gay are calling into question what a TLD even means.

So why not just get rid of them? Shift existing URLs one dot over to the right. I think this is a great idea; I guess the only thing I don't like about it is that it's restricted to certain corporations, though I imagine that restriction would be lifted over time. ICANN does not strick me as a politically corrupt organization.
 
I will have to research this more outside of the article but in some ways this seems like this will give major corporations even more of a foothold over small business in the way of online media. I fully agree with stopping the domain squatting but still it seems this only favors major corporations.

Seems like? They actually SAY it is to give major corporations more of a foothold. There is no 'seems like' when the organization doing it says that's their goal. Even if YOU as a small business come up with the $150,000 application fee they STILL won't even consider it for you as per this part of the article: "According to the draft new gTLD applicant guidebook dated May 30, only "established corporations, organisations, or institutions in good standing may apply for a new gTLD". ICANN will not consider applications from individuals or sole proprietorships."
 
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