"Just because it's never been done before..."

[DNS Kidd]

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Does anyone know if the concept of a null, or universal, TLD has been discussed at ICANN, or otherwise?

Each TLD adds some type of association to every name, either negative, positive, or otherwise.

Product marketing is presently done without any added baggage hanging off the end of a product name.

Lexus, BMW, Porsche; all the hundreds of other product names stand on their own, with a description sometimes tossed in, such as "Hershey's chocolate" or "Hershey's candy bar."

Strong names have immediate brand recognition and trust in the consciousness of world consumers.

Why can't domain names follow this same model?

The http:// has been eliminated (it's still there, you just don't have to type or see it, unless you are using that lame Front Page html editor or something. The last holdout I saw for the http:// was on the sides of UPS trucks. Maybe they thought it looked high-tech or something.

The options of ftp:// or file:// I would wager haven't been seen by many forum members. The ftp and html programs work with these behind the scenes.

The www. for the most part is gone. It's redundant. If you have .TLD at the end, WWW. isn't needed at the beginning.

Why not have domain names with no TLD tacked on? A null TLD could be more significant and valuable than any present available TLD.

Earlier browsers, such as Netscape 4.67 and IE 4 would parse your URL entry, and fill in the blanks. CNN became http://www.cnn.com, and there was your page.

Could the 17 or so root name servers resolve a domain name that does not have a .TLD on it? Could a pseudo TLD exist, such as .null, so that if name.null were registered, the root DNS would interpret "name" as a proper domain name, and point it to the correct address for DNS?

All that would be needed to show web content would be, an underscore. IBM

Brand names would be back to where they should be. In some cases GE.COM the TLD is longer than the corporate name.

The commercial / organization / network / museum / professional / int / ARPA / gov / etc. would be left to people that have a need for that type of thing.

A de facto new extension would be created, and TM holders would have to reg names all over, land rush, etc. etc.

But the outcome would be worth it.

Porsche

IBM

Cisco

BMW

Verizon

Coca Cola

Linux

Are these are the domain names of the future, or wishful thinking, with many technical / political reasons why it can't happen?

 

[timechange.com]

I should tm GayCola.com as well

 

[DNS Kidd]

What thread are you replying to.

 

[RON2]

Interesting thought. However I can't see it happening from a marketing standpoint.

I too have noticed that http://www.company.com has finally become company.com on most offline advertising. The .TLD now serves the important role of letting consumers know what you're looking at is a web address. If a company's web address was simply 'Company', they would surely have to add some accompanied text letting them know it was an address. Just seeing another instance of 'UPS' on the side of a truck wouldn't cut it.

This is one reason .com is still king. Smart companies realize that consumers see .com and think 'website'

What we are talking about has already been attempted, and failed with Internet keywords (realwords) and occasionally used with 'AOL Keyword: Company', but still it always needs to be accompanied with the verbiage that it's a keyword.

 

[RON2]

A couple years back when I used Netscape Navigator (v2 or v3) when you type in a word in the address bar, Netscape would redirect to one of the three main TLD's selected at random, ie: word.net, word.com, or word.org

Does it still do this? Or what version did it stop doing that?

 

[Beachie]

Version 4 browsers were the last, I think..

I've also wondered if there will come a time when we'll do away with the TLD heirarchy.. Would we still have second level domains? lesbian.sex? web.sites? Might get confusing..

lesbiansex lesbia.nsex lesbians.ex

typo.heaven

 

[.com.net.org]

Isn't it called 'KEYWORD' ?

Enom offered this before.

And that's nothing to do with ICANN.

You must discuss this matter with Mr. Gates and ask him to integrate it for you.
And you can even get all IE user to go to your site, whatever domain name or what they type in the address bar.
Isn't it cool.

 

[dtobias]

Well, I don't use IE, so I'm immune to Gates' manipulations... (My main browser is Mozilla.)

Speaking of AOL keywords, one of the most idiotic of them shows up on (American) football telecasts, where they say "To get more info, go to NFL.COM... or AOL keyword 'NFL.COM'." Is that dumb or what... why have the ".COM" in an AOL keyword, and why bother to mention an AOL keyword if it's the same as the Internet address (which both AOLers and non-AOLers can get to) anyway?

As for the "http://" not being part of the URL any more, it still is; browsers let you get away with not typing it, but if you put in hyperlinks by hand in an HTML document you'd better remember it or they get treated as relative links and don't work.

 

[DNS Kidd]

Keyword is an AOL term. Someone offered a browser plug-in for single name URL resolution several years back, it failed.

I am suggesting a more fundamental approach here that would involve ICANN and its various working and technical groups.

The indicator for a web site would be an underscore, as it is with an active hyperlink.

This suggestion has basically nothing to do with browsers, I only offered that example as "how it used to work, by accident."

UPS on a delivery van is just advertising. UPS on the same van says "visit our web site for more information."

TLD implementation has bought both organization, and confusion, to the net.

A widget vendor, a business, or a corporation, should have the option of a single point of access for Internet resources, without having to hang a TLD off of their corporate, product, or brand names.

The implementation of this idea would quell some of the criticism that the US controls the net, and offers up only TLD's that it likes.

A non-TLD would be a universal TLD, perfectly suited for the brands and names of any country.

 

[airnike764]

I have used commonnames.com for this service but they ripped me off and I lost $1,000. Considering microsoft owns 25% of that ocmpany, I didn't think it would ever happen. There are a few types of websites that offer this service but the bad thing is, in order for it to work, you need to d/l a plugin. Also the internet isn't ready for this yet

 

[dtobias]

Why try to force everybody into the same flat namespace? That's what's caused so much conflict in the DNS as it is, even with the officially hierarchical namespace. Why encourage it to flatten even more? Which Acme company should have the TLD-less "Acme"? Should the TLD-less "CIA" go to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Culinary Institute of America, or the Cleveland Institute of Art?

 

[DNS Kidd]

The null TLD should go to the TM holder for that name first, and then to the first to market / most able to pay next.

This is no different than the current name distribution model.

A null TLD would provide additional names, not flatten the namespace. More names would become available to net users, thereby removing pressure from the existing available TLD's.

Some questions this idea of a null TLD might bring up?

> How would this affect search engine placement? Would the current algorithms have to adjust for better / worse or different placement based on content found on a null TLD site, .vs. a .com/.net/.org.

> Valuation models would have to adjust to the lack of a "handle" as one of the means of estimating the value of a name. A fundamental issue for this forum.

There is no doubt that a null TLD would be considered a premium option.