ICANN’s recent initiative to expand the pool of top-level domain names has sparked speculation about how much veto power the U.S. and other governments will have over proposed TLDs as well as all Internet addresses in general.
The U.S. Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has proposed veto power for all governments against applications for the new TLDs. In fact, the NTIA is asking for the power to object to any proposed Internet address for any reason.
With over 100 TLD applications expected to be made at ICANN’s three-day conference in San Francisco next month, the sky’s the limit on which names will be proposed. While names like .health, .car, .web and .nyc are already on the roster, the government has expressed disapproval about more controversial names. The .xxx domain, for instance, was initially approved by ICANN but the Bush administration blocked its use seven years ago and the government has never given it official approval.
The dotGAY Initiative and the .GAY Alliance have already stated they will apply for the .gay TLD despite the whopping $185,000 application fee. But there have been concerns that if world governments are given absolute veto power of TLDs, names like .gay, .jihad and .humanrights will never see the light of day.
Control the world’s domain names, Internet kill switch… More of the same.
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Again anal control freaks, Progressives on the march. Keyword: Control.
.bs
I thought the whole purpose of ICANN was to keep gov away from the internet!
#1–dismal==how much of Alfie’s persona do you plan on aping? Progressives this/that==really silly. You and I don’t get along at all but I respect you and your position “enough” to read them. Not so with Alfie and you are starting to parrot him in freakishly similar ways.
Pull Out!!!!—before it is too late. You are a better man.
#1–dismal==A thought just occurred. You probably aren’t aping Alfie==your thinking for yourself has just been captured by the same idiot rightwingnut websites? From lips to asshole, why don’t you stop playing the middle man and just post your sources?
How many TLDs do we need?
Hey, I’m not an expert on Constitutional law. But I’m pretty sure they’d require a new amendment to allow the gov. to obtain a new power, to control something like this. And even if that weren’t the case. Then it would be in violation of existing Constitutional law, forbidden or restricting the gov. from interfering in what could be labeled as the free press, free speech, and/or freedom of religion. At the very least, the right to pursue happiness. There’s no granted power or powers, in the US Constitution, that allows the governing body to forbid or prevent a means or medium of expression. Just on the grounds that it might be controversial or dangerous (to somebody). Bush was playing fast and lose with his office’s power. And Congress and the DOJ went along with it. Mainly because they’re all too damn lazy to do their jobs. Rethinking the Geneva Convention, just to allow prisoner torture, should never have been allowed. Presidents can’t just reinterpret the laws of the land, whenever the hell they feel like it. But the gutless DOJ did little or nothing to oppose him. And I suspect they’ll do little or nothing to oppose this NTIA abuse of power, too. Because big brother gov always wants more power, to aid its corporate patrons.
I think we have as many top level domains as we need.
The reality is getting more TLDs will mean domain names will become useless, surrendering about all power to find anything to the search engines.
#7 and #8 How will an additional 250 TLD names affect my domain?
Who finds anything much for the first time without a search engine? I can look up http://ford.com easily but as soon as I want to find spare parts, I use Google.
Until some bureaucrat takes away my mydomain.com from me, I am fine. That is what needs stopped, not someone else having mydomain.xxx or mydomain.gay.
.gay? Gays spend the last few decades fighting feverishly to become an integrated part of mainstream culture, and now they want to separate themselves again?
#10 completely agree. That would also open the door for racist TLDs with no argument against.
#11 I suppose .gay .islam .nword and the like would need to prove that they would be legitimate users of the TLD to get it. I think that happened in the past for .com and .net but now it is a free for all. Not sure what proof would be needed for .xxx though!
I would prefer that nobody’s government was doing it. The controller of the TLD would be the appropriate party. Again best not government.
All is vanity!
Glenn E., I don’t know which Constitution you’re reading.
Adding more TLD names is kinda stupid. Regardless of governmental interference. I think ICANN should limit these in number. I’m sure there are many non-profits using the “.COM” domain. And also likely some for-profits using “.ORG”. I can think of one cult in particular, that uses it. As far as I know, there’s little or no enforcement of the TLD name uses. You can be sure the military services have recruitment sites, on “.COM” domain, rather than just “.MIL”. And if there ever were a “.XXX”, you can be sure they’d sign up to exploit that too. So why does anyone really need their own special lifestyle TLD name? It would just end up being easier to block their exposure to anyone else. And a lousy 3% of the population, hardly needs its own TLD. If they got “.GAY” then they’d want “.UNCUT” next. Or “.MBL” (man boy love). And why not a TLD for every race? I’m sure many who say they want to be treated just like everyone else, also want their own race’s TLD, where they can go to NOT be treated the same. It’s totally stupid to create TLDs for every whim and flavor of human obsession. Let’s hope that ICANN will keep it down to just the basic groups of interests and commerce. And not give us any “.GOP”, or “.TEA”, or “.PALIN”!
Actually I just did think of one very useful TLD name, that ICANN could set up. I call it “.SUX”.
And you can believe it would get a lot of use. Generally, a domain for everyone to use to register complaints about everything that, well, sucks in some way. Like airportsecurity.sux or brandoffastfood.sux . You get the idea. No more hunting for complaint blogs and boards, among the .COMs and .ORGs.
The whole concept is stupid. It’s just going to pad the pocket of the trolls who try to get you to “protect your brand” by cybersquatting and offering to sell you yourdomain.cn, yourdoman.co.uk, yourdomain.co.za, yourdomain.whatever… on to infinity.