Morning Folks!!
Talk about a SCATHING article about the new gTLD's. this baby is a blockbuster!!! How many of these "Weddings" are going to end up in death as they die on the vine? Or, maybe open up shop and be served with 100 or 1000 different lawsuits claiming this or that and as a corporation you are compelled to answer each and every one of them? How do you spell "Can of worms"? Well here is a batch jumping out of a can just as we are getting to the altar.
Mike Berkens uncovered a WHALE of a story by the NY Times yesterday and I am compelled to post about it here as well. It is stunning. It is a rebuke of what is to come. The Clusterf*ck as I have been describing it since day one. But Clusterf*ck sounds mild when Ester Dyson says it is "contributing nothing" and others use the keyword CONFUSION! Gee where have I heard that word before. Confusion. Let me think. Maybe 100 posts of mine!
"The proliferation of these suffixes seems fraught for both consumers and companies. It has the potential to confuse online searchers: .car or .cars? baby.toys or toys.baby? It could also prompt companies, at great expense, to register bunches of new brand sites defensively as a way to pre-empt cybersquatters, spoofers and fraudsters."
Some technology veterans and trademark experts view the domain expansion as largely unnecessary.
“You are creating a business, like derivatives on Wall Street, that has no value,” says Esther Dyson, a technology investor who served as the founding chairwoman of Icann. “You can charge people for it, but you are contributing nothing to the happiness of humanity.”
She went on to say, “You are creating a business, like derivatives on Wall Street, that has no value,”.
THESE ARE VERY STRONG WORDS COMING OUT. Taking a stand like this in public is not an easy thing to do. She is courageous for saying them and it would be even more courageous to heed them.
And perhaps the biggest warning comes from professor, Jacqueline Lipton, from University of Houston Law Center.
“The Internet address oversight body may not have considered deeply enough the larger linguistic and societal ramifications of setting off a land grab for new virtual real estate like .love or .home “It’s a private body, that is dabbling in this very delicate balance of commerce and expression online that is fraught with pitfalls.”
Ray Bradley
I agree that it will make it more difficult for the consumer to remember web sites if you have a hundred different ending like .baby……….etc.
I am surprised that no-one has mentioned .CO and all the good names that are available. If you already have a web site address you may not need these new gTLDs anyway. If you have a NEW idea or product maybe you need to look for a good .CO, alot of them are still available. Maybe with the .LA, .COM, .NET, .CO, and .NY there is already enough web space for everyone.
BillW
.co has been a major topic of discussion here…mostly from the perspective of the overstock.co experience.
Verdict: .co bleeds massive traffic to the .com owner.
But, if you can’t afford the .com and your intent on using a specific ‘keyword’ left of the dot then dot co is a distant third or fourth string alternative depending on your feelings about .net, .org or .info.
Scott
Great article. Where were all these people earlier? This is all about a money grab that they guise with “needed expansion of the Internet”…pfft…here is another great quote from the article.
““It’s a very legitimate competition concern,” says Jon Leibowitz, a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission who recently joined the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell in Washington as a partner. “The public at large, consumers and businesses, would be better served by no expansion or less expansion” of domains.”
You don’t say!
Reality bites...
The biggest aspect that should be mentioned is ICANNs defence that the whole basis of these additional extensions is nothing more than a revenue making exercise for themselves at the expense of IP holders. Racketeering and extortion come to mind to be honest.
Whats even more disturbing is that ICANN has deliberately formed financial relationships with large corporates to monopolise parts of the internet. Take .app , .shop , .beauty. All these and far more will NOT be available for open market general take up, in essence ICANN colludes with large corporates for financial gain.
If ICANN was really interested in further inclusion of businesses and individuals in the marketplace then names as obvious as .web .shop .store and so forth would have been made publicly available rather than the preserve of a few corporates to consolidate their market share. ICANN by its very actions acts contra to what it states is its basis for these new extensions.
JBS
Are there any respected domainers (on the record) planning to sit this clusterf*ck out completely? Or will they actually not be able to help themselves to the punch and chips when the party is started? And get a bellyache themselves afterwards…
florida
collapse all new tlds like obamacare. no one wants these new tlds!!!!!!!
Reality bites...
Rick – You’ll have to set up a running calendar for mortuary stats as these things die on the vine. When the renewals come around it will be raining turds on their parade thats for sure.
M. Menius
It’s amusing but also somewhat affirming to see non-industry professionals see through this ridiculous charade. There never was a need for new tlds. It really does amount to extortion of corporate entities at the additional expense of general internet commerce and the accumulated logic & organization of the internet.
I have taken this position from the beginning as well because logic and objective analysis can only lead one in that directon, i.e. the new gtld proposal was mostly a scam and a blatant attempt at profiteering. They proceeded with it regardless of the consequences to a majority of internet stakeholders and internet consumers.
steve cheatham
It is simply a charade to get more money in the ICANN coffers. But I can imagine there was a lot of pressure. Folks thinking they can duplicate the success of dot com. While some may enjoy some degree of success over a period of years, it looks bleak form many to recover their investment.
Dot Com rules!
BillW
My guess is that less than 5% will succeed, probably being given away as “free” domains.newgTLD to gain you as a customer. Some have speculated that Google, Amazon and others may take that approach to give you a free domain name, then sell you vertical services.
The rest may well become “Vanity” gTLDs, like vanity license plates for the rich.
CB
Also, confusion will stem from the average person not knowing which TLDs exist and which don’t. For example, someone might be into mountain biking and will be able to visit mountain.bike, but they also like flying aircraft and won’t understand why fly.planes doesn’t take them anywhere. Or is it fly.aeroplanes or fly.airplanes or fly.aircraft or aircraft.fly or http://www.fly or http://www.planes or…