Well, I have been watching people
debating on this issue for months and there is no clear sign to signal the winner.Why
people don’t listen to each other and understand other’s opinions? Everyone is trying
to convince the others that his/her opinion is the best solution to the problem.
I just want to add my humble opinion. Hope my remark will not offend anyone.
For
those who prefer to have new top-level domains, let me ask you a question. How do
you know that adding more top-level domains will solve the domain shortage problem?
How many people have said that they would not seek their domain names under the new
TLDs. With the help of the computer, all the new top-level domain names will be registered
in a couple of weeks. And more TLDs will be needed to meet more people's needs. These
babies are still at kindergartens have not start to register their domain names yet.
What about them? Do you know how many smiths in the world? There is no way to satisfy
every smith in the world to have a very simple smith.myuniqueTLD. Think again. That
is not going to happen.
Adding more TLD will definitely increase the cost of business,
I would say exponentially. For big corporations, they have money to register the
names, regardless how many TLDs. For small businesses, five or six TLDs will drain
them out financially. Of course, Network Solutions and other registrars will be more
happy increase the TLDs to cash in. The more TLDs will cause more confusion, and
the more money you have to spend. Of course, ICANN will become a more powerful organization,
and monopolizes the Internet. I am not pessimistic. I am warning you right now. If
we made mistakes today, our offspring will clean them years later. In my interpretation,
the register race will do on until the fuel dries out (no money to register). The
winner of the domain registration marathon will be the domain registration firms.
Regardless of how powerful the Internet is, there must be a system to register
all the domains that we use in the Internet. In real world, If you want to send a
piece of mail to a person named Smith, you have to specify which smith and where.
That is to: Mr. Smith, 123 main street, Big City, Upper Province, Middle Country,
Zip Code 1234567, etc. Why cannot adopt this very common sense the Internet community?
In
our crowded cities, people build high rises to increase space, using first, second,
... and 100th floor to distinguish themselves in the same apartment building.
Another
question for those who want to have more TLDs is what is the difference between to
have Business.com, Business.net, Business.web, Business.shop, Business.art, Business.sex,
... and Business.anything and Business.sex.com, Business.net.com, Business.web.com,
Business.shop.com, Business.art.com, business.sex.com, ... and business.anything.com.
I mean just PUSH DOWN the Lower-level domains NOT the TOP-level domains. People,
can you hear me? I am yelling.
Or we can simply use business.yahoo.com, shoes.yahoo.com,
and flowers.yahoo.com to distinguish these businesses. I know you people are against
this idea. You want mybusiness.myuniqueTOL.
If you don't like this, why don't use
business1.com, business2.com, ..., and business20000.com. Isn’t that simple?
If we increase the TLD, you may grab the business.art domain if you are lucky. However,
the next guy who does not get this business.art will not happy and ask to add more
TLDs like business.paiting or business.photo. I am asking you that when will be enough
for the TLDs that no one will complain. Never. And I am sure there will be cyber
wars to resolve this issue. How many Chinese and Indian are there in the world? They
have not start to ask increase the TLDs. The do main nightmare has not started yet.
Ideally,
add country code, geographic descriptions will solve this problem. There will be
no confusions to know there the business is. If you do not like the idea, you still
can find a name under .com, and .net. If we use the permutation of the 26 English
letters and two Arabic numbers, we will be able to have at least 30,000,000,000 domain
names. It is just an 8 number domain names, fewer than our telephone numbers.
I
just want to reiterate my point: instead of PUSHING UP to add more TLDs, we should
PUSHING DOWN to increase the domain space. For example, repair.auto.com, dealer.auto.com,
racing.auto.com, parts.auto.com, etc. If people complain, they can add more down
to the pipe such as joesparts.auto.com. If anoter Joe's auto part store complains,
he can add more. In another words, try do your best to get a name close to the .com
or .net as best as you can. If not, then you can buy one, or find a one that is a
little bit longer one. Please tell me why this pushing down lower-level domains does
not work. If the trademarked names will not let you to attach lower-level domain,
why just push down the generic names. The trademarked names will not let you do anything
anyhow.
Are there any librarians here? Do you know the classifications of the books?
How do the publishers solve the problems? There are millions of books printed out
every year. There must be a very good system to register it.
For those computer
gurus, do you know how easy or difficult is it to extend the domains on down level
in the system?
In the digital world, we use 0 and 1 to describe everything. Perhaps
we have to use the same way to solve the domain shortage issue, either do not add
any top-level domains, or no limit on top-level domains. The only thing ICANN needed
to do is restrict the total numbers of letters or numbers used for the TLDs. So,
every one will have a top-level domain. You will happy, I will happy, and every one
will be happy. Right?
No. People who cannot get the very best domains still won’t
happy. Again, the cyber war will go on.