Icann 3 year policy statement on domain names

[DomainsInc]

If the .pizza tld owner is smart he will not offer a single domain for sale and simply send every bit of traffic to their own site. That is how you monopolize a tld!

Profiting off known TM's doesn't sounds very legal.

 

[Theo]

Exactly. I am pretty sure that there will be provisions that would not allow for getting a TLD strictly to keep the entire range of domain keywords above it (essentially, the entire namespace that already exists today). And again, I am sure we will see the same despicable phenomenon of the registry reserving valuable keywords and auctioning these off, e.g. best.pizza, cheese.pizza etc.

 

[tristanperry]

More money grabbing from ICANN

I agree Stian, though, that in 3 year's time we won't see this in full force, and even when it's up and running it'll have little effect to the majority of us.

 

[CPTL]

No, ICANN is now selling TLDs quickly instead of approving them slowly like in current process, it means .sex, .web, .xxx and many many more can all start at one go.

Selling it at such high price they think they will get lots of income, but it will backfire.

No one is silly enough to pay $150K for an extension and pay the same amount every year for renewal, if only to use it as his company domain or just to fit his family tree of 20 members into the extension.
No, they will sell it, and run it as a registry. Lots of people think it is money spinning and they all apply for new TLDs.

You know what happen if your domain is not making your money worth? You decide it is not worth your money to renew it.

Unlike CCTLD that has a whole Nation behind them, if these vast numbers of confusing TLDs did not run themselves well enough, they will go down in history book as florished briefly.

I myself would be one that will not register anything on those extensions, they are private commercial enterprises and not able to give me any guarantee. Well, who knows on which day they will decide not to renew their ‘money spinning license’, and I have to go down with it.

Except a few significant ones, they will all be gone with a downward spiral, unless ICANN will compensate their annual fees accordingly. But then, this just beats the objective of money grabbing, which is why ICANN was setting all this up in the first place.

CPTL.

 

[domaingenius]

The problem for us domainers that I see by all these new tld's is that joe public does not
really appreciate the differences in practice between .com and .new and when one comes
to sell a domain name to an end user they will simply say "why should I buy it from you for
$10,000 when I can get .new for US$10 ?" . OK so .new is crap but they will not know that,
and may never appreciate the traffic they are losing. The loss therefore may be greater
to those domainers who want to sell the domains rather than those who live from
PPC.

DG

 

[Seraphim]

Hmm... who will be the first company to register a short snappy TLD, and then figure out a way to give domains away for free, and still break profit? I'll front the XXX,XXX investment needed if someone has a solid game plan.

 

[mulligan]

Who are they kidding?

People who think like you.

 

[Stian]

I would like to quote Ron Jackson of DNJournal.com in the latest lowdown from June 26th regarding this issue:

I've spent most of today fielding calls from a wide variety of mainstream media outlets, including ABC News and the New York Times, about what impact ICANN's decision to allow an unlimited number of new extensions will have on the Internet and those of us in the domain industry. As expected, the ICANN board voted to proceed with the plan today just before closing their 32nd International meeting in Paris, France.

I told the reporters that I don't expect this move to have a major impact on our industry or on which extensions most people will choose to build their websites on over the next decade. I believe that because we already have historical examples of how little new extensions have impacted the use and popularity of the three original global extensions, .com, .net, .org (and the country code extensions assigned to each nation like Germany's .de and Great Britain's .co.uk). The two oldest examples of new global TLDs were introduced in 2001 (.info) and 2002 (.biz) and despite their long time in the marketplace, neither has affected values or usage of the extensions that came before them.

..

I expect that a flood of new extensions will create some confusion in the market place, but not confusion over what the long proven .com, .net and .org extensions stand for. Putting new extensions out there is the easy part. Burning them into people's consciousness is a much taller order as .info and .biz, after seven years of trying, are well aware.
..

There are many newer examples that have fared much worse, not even moving the needle on the recognition meter. .Travel for instance has been a complete flop even though it incorporates one of the very best keywords on the web. .Pro has also failed to make a ripple despite featuring a word with a very positive connotation. It does take time to build recognition though, which is why I think the elder statesmen of new extensions - .info and .biz - are the most instructive examples of the long term prospects for a wave of new TLDs..

The complete article can be read here.

 

[tldrental]

Everyone seems to be concerned about the increase or decrease in ".COM" value once this change happens. The only people who should be concerned about loosing value on there domains are the people who try to sell a domain on its merit just on name alone.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but at the end of the day value is really decided by traffic and the type of traffic the domain name gets. Almost regardless of extension, it just so happens the .com (commerce) is the most popular and O.G (Original Gangster)
so it hold more weight when you factor traffic.

Also remember it will come down to length and memorability. ".COM" short sweet and about 15+ years of branding behind it.

I think you dooms day worriers out there have your time table reversed. If this new hoopla over vanity extension impacts this industry it will take a while minimum 5 - 10 years for it to build momentum and hurt domainers, but probably much later than that.
Bottom line short term there is nothing to worry about, it will take a while for adoption. Eventually when they bring the price down it will become more popular possibly like an LCD/Plasma TV 5 years ago to now.

This 20 year lawsuit http://nissan.com/Lawsuit/The_Story.php most likely has something to do with this decision it.

LOL .... cant wait to see who is granted the rights to

.nissan

 

[Stian]

Please correct me if I am wrong, but at the end of the day value is really decided by traffic and the type of traffic the domain name gets.

Of course if you can add traffic to a domain name, it's value will rise, but that's not the point here IMO. The point is that; .com, .net and .org, regardless of traffic, are the extensions that have been around forever and those are the extensions that people remember. The reason why a generic .net, .com or .org (regardless of traffic) is valuable, is because those 3 TLD's are the only ones who people will remember.

Start an advertising campaign for Cars.net and Cars.auto .. Which one will be the easiest to remember? The good old .net extension, or the brand new .auto extension that people will keep forgetting?

In Norway, will people start typing in google.google, instead of google.no ? Will Germans start using ebay.auction instead of ebay.de .. or ebay.com ? - In 20 years, maybe.. In the nearest future, never!

.com, .net and .org forever!

My 50 cents..

 

[onlinetv]

"We're talking about introducing potentially thousands more names," said Paul Levins, executive officer of Icann, the California-based nonprofit company that is the host of the Paris conference (June 21-27), which has drawn more than 1,300 delegates from 130 countries"

Link: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/22/business/net23.php?page=1

Sounds almost offical.

How are these people "delegates?" Who delegated to them and what is delegated? Who did we send? I sent no one, how does one delegate? How do 130 countries figure into the "delegates" or delegation and what is it they got delegated to?

 

[accent]

Sounds almost offical.

How are these people "delegates?" Who delegated to them and what is delegated? Who did we send? I sent no one, how does one delegate? How do 130 countries figure into the "delegates" or delegation and what is it they got delegated to?

..... and the vote was unanimous.

They have spent ten million dollars on this already, have not even decided how much to charge or the rules for accepting extensions?

Yeah, I know.
Call girls in Hawaii are expensive.

 

[onlinetv]

This is a money grab. Look at the propaganda:

"The pressure to open up the system to allow more choices comes at a time when the Internet's addresses are rapidly being depleted with the explosion of computers and devices that connect to it. By last autumn, Icann estimated that only 17 percent of an available pool of 4 billion network addresses remained, and they are expected to run out in the next five years."

So this is about the diminishing IP numbers and the new IPv6 that Vint Cerf has been working on for years; "IP on Everything." There are hundreds of thousands of names, word combos and number/words available in many .xxx what they are mixing here is the IP shortage with name shortage! Freaks!

The next paragraph changes that and here is propaganda:

"While passage of the plan (not IPv6 but the plan for new names) is expected, some opponents say the new system would create bureaucratic headaches for companies fending off people seeking to create new domains that infringe on their trademarks."

They have interjected "the plan" so that it seems part of IPv6, when it is no such thing. So this is to completely confuse any normal reader and they are right back next paragraph to IPv6 and the reality they will have to face - not enough numbers to go around due to huge costs to update routers. Internet 2 is alive and growing, you are just not a part of it.

"At its meeting this week, Icann is also promoting an additional, number-based address system, IPv6, which could add trillions of new addresses. But international adoption of the new standards has been slow, in part because of the costs of switching and concerns that the new technical standard will make it easier for governments or companies to track what individuals are doing on the Internet."

This is fear mongering. They already track everyone with cell technology and no computer connects without its footprint visible. The new IP strategy will allow everything in the universe to have an addressable IP. At least that is how Vint explained it to me over diner.

But they do envisage a door bell ringing while you eat diner and a refrigerator repairman at the door because your fridge called them up as it was about to fail. Pretty one world orderish. I am not buying one but if you have that GM Telstar thing in your car you already have something like it.

This is like state vanity plates; pork bellies have reached for deeper pockets. But they are twisting a lot of propaganda, which will hurt domainers as ICANN case loads fill their financial coffers along with the fees to register. I am sure they will find a way to partner on sales soon and take part of the profits. Wait, they did:

"The application fee for a domain name under the proposed system estimate that it could range from €25,000 to €250,000, or about $39,000 to $390,000. Icann is also prepared to set up an auction system if competing groups bid for the same name. Private companies would reap their profit by selling the domain names to registrars, which would then sell them to individual customers."

So ICANN sees the only budget growth by participating in domain auctions. They offer the bone that if you win your name for some half million euros you can resell it to real individuals. They hold the monopoly, the arbitrage, the subjective decision if a name is worthy, and the right to allow competitors to bid it up for their own coffers. This is real woo.

I watched ICANN form and take over the Internet with no "authority" other than their own forcefulness. Like freaks filling a vacuum. It was all corporate shills being pushed in a free for all power grabs. This is shameful.

 

[SonnyBurnett]

I watched ICANN form and take over the Internet with no "authority" other than their own forcefulness. Like freaks filling a vacuum. It was all corporate shills being pushed in a free for all power grabs. This is shameful.

Ditto.

 

[MacyT.]

Do we know of corporations that plan to spend this money and actually do this?

It would be pretty amusing if everyone just ignored ICANN and didn't spend a penny on this nonsense. Perhaps, it would send them a message - to get a job robbing people blind, elsewhere.

 

[spanno]

more junk .tld's for spammers to use

 

[ksinclair]

a vanity extension would be a hot commodity. the suggestion makes me want one.

Initially it will cost over $100,000 to have your own extension.

Still want one?

 

[domaingenius]

Do we know of corporations that plan to spend this money and actually do this?

Not for certain ,but I cannot see Jay Westerdal not taking part !.

DG

 

[acronym007]

Initially it will cost over $100,000 to have your own extension.

Still want one?

How do we know what the cost will be? ICANN has already hired an auction house to run the auctions. I'm very curious what the entry price will be and you can forget getting a popular one if it goes into auction.

 

[Edder]

I have no problem with ICANN adding new TLDs, but opening up that namespace to anyone is just gonna dilute the existing pool of gTLDs and ccTLDs and make it even more confusing for your average internet netizen. If there's anyone GOOD to come out of this, it's that some domain investors might be panicked into selling off their .net's, .orgs and other gTLD's at liquidation prices.

*crosses fingers*