Petition: Why the new custom TLDs are a bad idea

[h2o]

Petition: Why the new gTLDs are a bad idea


Here are some reasons I compiled on why generic top level domains are a disaster waiting to happen. I hope the members of ICANN read this and put it into consideration. Feel free to add, discuss, rant, or whatever.

TM nightmare
Trademark owners would have to secure their mark in every extension as a defensive mechanism. That is very costly and major corps have already spoken loudly.
-Verizon vice president Sarah Deutsch calls it a “huge waste of corporate resources”
-The trademark issues are not so clear cut. There are “gray” areas and then there are “grey” areas. Does InsureMe.com have any rights to Insure.Me?

User confusion
Info.Cars or Cars.Info? Singles.Love or Love.Singles?
With names like these, we might as well type in the IP address.
The domain name system was originally in place for convenience – so that users would not have to memorize a string of numbers. (From addresses to phone numbers, we have enough to remember as is) It is then will it become a huge “non profit” cash cow.

Dot com or just a dot?
Most people have gotten used to the idea that www is the Internet prefix and .com is the Internet suffix. All you need to say is AnyKeyWord.com and even the least tech savvy have a vague idea of the web.
With the new system, the only thing new domains will have in common with each other is the dot. It will be that one tiny dot that will tell users it’s an Internet site. That will force radio announcers to say that excruciating prefix “Double U, double u, double u” out loud.” Instead of “Visit us at Business.com, it's Visit us a www.business.money. A lot of the traffic will go to money.com

Just the dot does not give closure to the message like a .com, a .net, or a .gov. Even though I have a lot of bad things to say about the custom TLDs I am a big supporter of dot web for that very reason. I have a hunch people are still going to attach that .com to whatever is advertised without an obvious suffix.

Technology Changes Fast. People’s habits don’t

Case and Point –Toll Free numbers American Idol is one of the most watched TV shows in the states. At the end of the show, watchers can vote for their favorite singer. During every episode, views have to be reminded these numbers are 1-866 not 1-800 numbers. And still, viewers still dial the wrong number…

Name Change, any one?
In my honest opinion, the new gTLDs are like this: Let’s say I get my name legally changed to Mike next week. I wonder if my friends will call me Mike. People’s perception of a web address will similarly not adjust as well. Think celebrities: P.Diddy is still Puff Daddy. Don’t get me started with Prince. Now think business. Think Macy’s department store: The US chain went from Hudson’s, to Marshall Fields, to now what is known as Macy’s. But still, older folks like my father still call it Hudson’s.

Now this may seem like a silly analogy but domaining is the industry of names and name changes. After all, whether you thought it was Macy’s or Hudson’s you still arrive at the same building. However, with a domain name a single slip and you arrive at a completely different location.

ICANN’S wrong priorities
Instead of investing time and money in this chaos waiting to happen ICANN should be concerned with keeping the Internet’s network architecture from collapsing. AT &T’s vice president has said that 130 billion in investments is needed to keep the networks stable three years from now. HD Video is predicted to make up most of the traffic and at this rate the net needs a makeover.

Disclaimer: These are my opinions. Don't shoot me.

 

[bmugford]

The only reason .INFO is even close to .ORG is the specials they always run. I bet the .INFO has the highest drop rate of any extension.

Those $0.99 - $1.99 domains don't look that great all of a sudden when renewal comes up.

 

[snoop]

Whats your point? You asked for statistics that show people are moving away from just .com and I showed you that net and org are growing faster then com. Now you claim the statistics are meaningless just because they dont support your view?

My point is that a month of data is rather meaningless, it is not a sign of a trend, which is why I have presented long term data.

 

[Dean]

My point is that a month of data is rather meaningless, it is not a sign of a trend, which is why I have presented long term data.

Well I am talking about recent trends, but just to disprove you further we can look at the last 3 months. .com grew 1.75%, .net grew 2.05% and .org grew 3.17%. If anything these figure prove my point even more.

 

[gpmgroup]

Anyway, just look at the numbers http://www.hosterstats.com/DomainNameCounts2008.php and see that .info is the only major TLD decreasing in numbers. It fell below 5million registrations 4 months ago and still hasn't risen back above. Its time for some more $1 promotions I think. The only reason it has that many registrations is because for $1 it is worth taking a risk. Everyone bought out all the short domains and also a lot of spam sites and proxies like .info because its cheap. Sure it has its use and is good for making proxies on so you only pay $1 for a domain since a proxy has a short life but I dont define this as success.

A huge volume of domains registered are from the drops - the premise being if someone else saw value then it may be worth a punt. Plus its very difficult for most people to think laterally, people need a prompt to register domains especially in volume and/or different subjects.

Since the huge give away /1$ reg many names were kept for a year then dropped. Those names were then registered from the drop lists. Again a percentage of those people saw no value so they dropped the next year.

If you look at the graphs the ripples have less and less effect each year.

Having said all that, while registration numbers give a comfort that there is still confidence in a TLD they do not give a good indication of usage and public acceptance / awareness. If you look at the registration numbers by country you will see that most of the registrations are held in the US

The US holds approximately

50 million out of 77 million com's
7.2 million out of 11.7 million .net's
4.8 million out of 7.1 million .orgs
2.7 million .info's out of 4.9 million .info's

The US doesn't have that much more business / people than the rest of the world its just it has a lot more domain speculators

Taking the US out of the equation for a moment

27 million com's
4.5 million .net's
2.3 million .orgs
2.2 million .info's

So .info isn't that far behind especially when you consider it is only 7 years old and the others 25 years i.e. 16 years older.

 

[Pred]

A huge volume of domains registered are from the drops - the premise being if someone else saw value then it may be worth a punt. Plus its very difficult for most people to think laterally, people need a prompt to register domains especially in volume and/or different subjects.

Since the huge give away /1$ reg many names were kept for a year then dropped. Those names were then registered from the drop lists. Again a percentage of those people saw no value so they dropped the next year.

If you look at the graphs the ripples have less and less effect each year.

Having said all that, while registration numbers give a comfort that there is still confidence in a TLD they do not give a good indication of usage and public acceptance / awareness. If you look at the registration numbers by country you will see that most of the registrations are held in the US

The US holds approximately

50 million out of 77 million com's
7.2 million out of 11.7 million .net's
4.8 million out of 7.1 million .orgs
2.7 million .info's out of 4.9 million .info's

The US doesn't have that much more business / people than the rest of the world its just it has a lot more domain speculators

Taking the US out of the equation for a moment

27 million com's
4.5 million .net's
2.3 million .orgs
2.2 million .info's

So .info isn't that far behind especially when you consider it is only 7 years old and the others 25 years i.e. 16 years older.

thanks for stats
repped

 

[gpmgroup]

The only reason .INFO is even close to .ORG is the specials they always run. I bet the .INFO has the highest drop rate of any extension.

Actually....

.Info has the LOWEST percentage drop rate of the main extensions

There have been around

294,365,206 deleted .com's - 78.4 million active
30,243,741 deleted .net's - 11.9 million active
19,433,046 deleted .org's - 7.2 million active
7,235,696 deleted .info's - 5.0 million active

Which gives a drop rate of

375% for .com
253% for .net
267% for .org
144% for .info


See you can do anything with statistics

 

[MicroGuy]

Actually....

.Info has the LOWEST percentage drop rate of the main extensions

There have been around

294,365,206 deleted .com's - 78.4 million active
30,243,741 deleted .net's - 11.9 million active
19,433,046 deleted .org's - 7.2 million active
7,235,696 deleted .info's - 5.0 million active

Which gives a drop rate of

375% for .com
253% for .net
267% for .org
144% for .info


See you can do anything with statistics

Fewer speculators = fewer drops perhaps. :gl:

 

[labrocca]

Case and Point –Toll Free numbers American Idol is one of the most watched TV shows in the states. At the end of the show, watchers can vote for their favorite singer. During every episode, views have to be reminded these numbers are 1-866 not 1-800 numbers. And still, viewers still dial the wrong number…

That seriously made me laugh out loud. I once was talking to a potential end user on the phone about a domain. When I told him my asking price, he thought it was too high. I told him, "Well, you could register extensions like .biz for $8!" He talked to me like he had no idea what I was talking about. "I'm old school" was his response also

I don't care what these new extensions do for the most part. From a domainers perspective it's going to be a bust but hey...we don't run the internet and what's been happening is extensions have been used to create wealth from nothing for registries and some domainers that game the system.

The gig is up. Opening the extensions kills the game entirely imho and that's their intention. Instead of 1 new extension a year there might be 5 or 10. In 20 years...we could have 100+ gTLD extensions.

BUT...this is only going to enhance CNO greatly. People will understand that a CNO is an established place to visit.

When I drive around looking for a place to eat...I try to find a place that's old and dingy. It's a sure bet it has amazing food otherwise it would have shut down long ago. Normally it works out.

Why stop this new extension ruling? Let it happen. Grab your money and spend heavy on CNO.

If ICANN wanted to make more money all the have to do is auction off the rest of the 1 letter .com's for 2 million plus each.

Maybe you aren't aware but ICANN is suppose to be a non-profit organization.

ICANN was formed in 1998. It is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable.

They are finally actually going to do that. The previous board was focused on lining their pockets with corruption and help from Verisign. It was a monopoly and to gain entry you had to spend a buttload of money, not step on toes, and enter into the corruption of ICANN.

Let the extensions come. I welcome them.

 

[h2o]

Maybe you aren't aware but ICANN is suppose to be a non-profit organization.

My point exactly hence the "non-profit" cash cow comment made earlier. ICANN brands themselves a not for profit organization but at least from many peoples view it's hard to tell with the announcement of custom gTLDs.

ICANN: Not for profit organization: 1998-2008

 

[Dean]

My point exactly hence the "non-profit" cash cow comment made earlier. ICANN brands themselves a not for profit organization but at least from many peoples view it's hard to tell with the announcement of custom gTLDs.

ICANN: Not for profit organization: 1998-2008

They are just trying to make back the huge amount of money they spent to make it so that all these new extensions, especially IDN extensions, were possible. There is a huge demand for IDN extensions from places like China, Russia and some Arabic countries and this was the main reason for allowing this new extension thing since I think Russia or China was threatening to do it themselves. These could prove successful or maybe the current ccTLD for these countries will hold up. I dont think the new extensions are about making money, rather they might actually think its for the good of the internet. ICANN's job is not to look out for domainers, if anything it would make more sense if they are trying to get rid of us and maybe they are.

 

[h2o]

ICANN's job is not to look out for domainers, if anything it would make more sense if they are trying to get rid of us and maybe they are.

I don't know if any anybody noticed but I have a dry sense of humor and I like to argue a lot.

They will never get rid of us domainers. After all, domains are like my little virtual pets that I collect like stamps. There will always be a demand for good domains. ICANN can try to stop us but it's not happening anytime soon.We provide a service and end users many times thank us.

On another note all these new TLDs will open the doors for con artists and phishers.

 

[gpmgroup]

The problem opening it up is there will be good registries and bad registries. The first thing supporters say is well thats fine its a free market and thats how it should be.

However there are huge costs involved in changing a brand for companies and domain names are often fundamental contact point. So changing from one domain name to another is not really option for most companies, certainly not on a regular basis.

This is where opening up the registrar space in the name of competition is fundamentally different from opening up the registry (new gTLD space). If a new gTLD fails it will take out part of the fabric of the internet where as if a registrar fails (Registerfly, Estdomains etc). its a hassle but relatively easy to move to a new registrar.

If a gTLD becomes problematic why would any other registry company rush in to take it over once a gTLD brand has a bad rep it's almost certainly toast which is extremely bad news for innocent 3rd parties who have branded around their domain name.

New gTLDs won't lead to an expansion of content either because running one website is all most companies and individuals can manage even something as distinctive and defined as .mobi has struggled getting companies to run a second parallel website.

 

[-REECE-]

Completely agree.

I'll go so far as to suggest it'll be the biggest cybersquatting gold rush since the early 90s and the biggest phishing gold rush ever...

Look how many people fall for Nigerian scam letters and tell me people aren't going to fall for something like eBay.auctions, Yahoo.Mail, etc. I'm sure there's more than enough people who'd fall for it to make it profitable.

I predict some unscrupulous domainers will make an absolute killing.

On another note all these new TLDs will open the doors for con artists and phishers.

 

[VURG]

See the ICANN website. They are giving access to a lot of application data on the front page. They are estimating $185,000 initial fees and $75,000 annual fees per extension*.

Maybe I should get a few.

*5% of sales annual fees if sales > $1500,000/year

 

[Dean]

See the ICANN website. They are giving access to a lot of application data on the front page. They are estimating $185,000 initial fees and $75,000 annual fees per extension*.

Maybe I should get a few.

*5% of sales annual fees if sales > $1500,000/year

There will be other cots involved though and also those fees will be higher for good ones since more then one company will want them and they will be auctioned off.