In business and in politics, it seems the obvious explanations are often overlooked by journalists, either from naivete or - more likely I think - from a deliberate effort to keep the story going.
Such is the case, I think, with the plans announced by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN - that's mumbo-jumbo for the outfit that controls the naming of internet domains, websites, and such) to greatly expand the number and type of available "top-level domains". More explanation: TLDs are the three letters after the dot, as in ".com" or ".edu", sometimes also referred to as "suffixes" (but not simply as "domains" as the writer mistakenly claims).
Our intrepid reporter here duly quotes ICANN to the effect that the expansion will "promote innovation," as well as critics of the move who claim that it will more likely promote confusion. So, like big oil companies which publicly scoff at profit and promote themselves as creators of jobs and friends of the environment, ICANN is just looking to serve the public interest. I think critics have the better argument.
It's true that ICANN is nominally a non-profit organization. But its livelihood clearly depends upon the companies that sell and register website names, and increasingly offer hosting and site-creation services as well. There used to be only a couple of such authorized registrars; now there are dozens. And now that every company and entity in the world already has a website, demand for names is probably down.
How could business be pumped up? Well, it's been pointed out that many existing companies may very well want to buy up alternate versions of their name (for example, WidgetCo might have Widgetco.com, but might want to block others from creating similar-sounding websites like Widgetco.usa or Widgetco.edu). That's particularly true for the planned ".xxx" suffix, which would denote pornography and the like. There's already evidence that these .xxx suffixes are being preemptively snapped up. That's lots of dollars headed into the coffers for website names that will forever remain blank.
Following the money gives a strong hint that the main effort is to create an artificial demand. Why expand the available suffixes so dramatically when there is no visible surge of interest in them? Apparently,"because ICANN." It's business as usual.
I'm not certain of this, but I think Google and other search engines give priority in their rankings to established suffixes like ".com" and ".edu" versus ".net" or ".me" So folks who buy those domains may be getting the URL name they want, but a suffix that may not make it to page one.
Posted by: Mark Delman | December 22, 2011 at 08:42 AM
Awesome post again chris. This surely seems like a leap frwaord in the domain name department as it hasn't undergone much changes ever since its advent. Moreover, I dont think the suffixes will be of the type .anything (lol) but a much larger variety will emerge compared to the present scenario of limited names. Totally a game-changer though !
Posted by: Andjela | June 03, 2012 at 03:32 AM
The problem is that the number of web domains registered is so high, especially with the .com suffix, that the amount of suffixes available was not enough. However, I agree perfectly with you that adding new suffixes creates confusion, and the big websites who have the most to lose from confusion, would still dish out money to buy the same domain name with the new suffix. The preferred option and the most popular would still be the .com and the new suffixes have a long way to go before matching its power. Money plays a big issue in the matter, and non-profit organisations do not mean that they are not revenue generating or that they are loss-making. On the whole, I agree with you about the points of artificial demand and money-motivated moves.
Posted by: Brad @codero | June 09, 2012 at 08:20 AM
Thanks for your comment, Brad. I do know that the .com suffix is in high demand and overcrowded, so that these days, I'm sure, it's impossible to get the address you want in .com. And yet, .biz is not fully subcribed, for the reasons you suggest.
Maybe the answer is in expanding the system gradually, as the most populous U.S. states do with auto registration numbers, or telephone/wireless providers do with prefixes. We could add .com1, for example, and grow from there as necessary. It's when we add a whole bunch of new suffixes at once, far ahead of the demand for them, that creates a huge surplus of them.
Posted by: JHawk23 | June 09, 2012 at 02:30 PM