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Sphinn Home » Domaining
Internet Liberalisation - Is it really for the greater good?
Domaining News Source: http://www.cornwallseo.com
Published: Jul 03, 2009 - 10:39 am
Story Found By: evilgreenmonkey 954 Days ago
Category: Domaining
ICANN controls how we use the internet, and they are controlled by their members. Should domain registrars really have so much power over our brands, search results and simple understanding of the web? How will ICANN’s plan to open up countless new domain extensions affect the trust and usability of the internet for the general public?
 Comments8 Comments  

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from marktempest 954 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Interesting read+extra points for writing this jetlagged on a plane!

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from jaamit 954 Days ago #
Votes: 0

A spot on rant from Mr E.G. Monkey. The ICANN ’liberalisation’ is just a cynical money spinner that won’t ’liberalise’ jack, IMO.  The only place it might be good is if you have to somehow prove you’re  based in a city before you can get .nyc or .london - that might be good for localised search. But I don’t see them doing that.

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from evilgreenmonkey 954 Days ago #
Votes: 0

@jaamit Good point about .nyc or .london, although there’s still the problem of getting non-webbies to recognise it even as a domain. Most people still don’t understand what .uk.com or .museum are, so would a .nyc be any more recognisable or seen as trustworthy over a .com? Glad we’re on the same page though :o)

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from demib 954 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I agree on the main points in the posts - however, I have a problem with who and how they got access to the best "core name" domains. This hasn’t been a very fair game to begin with so why should the first owners have life long rights to the domains?In Denmark - with the ccTLD .dk, a few select companies got several weeks in advance of everyone else to freely buy all the best domains. They took thousands. Most of them have not been used for anything but redirects and email POP accounts for over 10 years. Is that fair?Why do people that was old enough to buy domains in the early ages of the Internet have more rights to get them as cheap as they did?To me that seems very much like a "wild west logic".So, if the hole basis of who got which domains is not fair to begin with how can we expect that what comes next will be?

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from Chris1 954 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Rob makes some great points in this article.  I’m surprised "liberalisation" is not being reported on more.  This issue seems like a huge deal to me but barely anyone seems to care.

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from crimsongirl 954 Days ago #
Votes: 3

Scarcity makes things valuable, and political discussions about whether to make a commodity more or less scarce are often driven by economic interests. Incumbents with scarce resources want that scarcity maintained, while newcomers often want markets opened up. It’s an age-old pattern and we see it playing out with domain names.  Honestly, I’m not sure “domainers” of today are so different from real estate speculators a few years ago. (“Prices can never go down because it’s the only thing they’re not making more of!”) Real estate prices are often inflated by scarcity imposed by government regulations – zoning and development restrictions. Less regulated places usually have lower prices all else being equal. Domain prices are inflated by limiting the number of TLDs. The incumbent domain owners oppose this internet liberalization for the same reason property owners don’t want a new development opening up on the edge of town – less scarcity means lower prices. The funny (or maybe ironic) thing here is that the Internet was a few years ago a place for mavericks and outsiders and people who were challenging the incumbents. Now the Internet is full of incumbents who seek to maintain scarcity just like the elites of the old economy. Liberalization threatens the economic interests of the incumbents with valuable domain names. The blogger asks “what gives a small business the right to own poker.con, just because they cannot afford to buy-out poker.com?” Justification for protecting the interests of the existing system. It’s just like the resistance of the old media when the Internet started making it big. This is just like scared owners of television stations and newspapers saying: what gives a small business the right to have a news operation on the internet just because they cannot afford to buy-out the New York Times or CNN. It isn’t fair!  

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from richardbaxterseo 949 Days ago #
Votes: 0

A thoughtful, expert and well written post. I don’t think we hear from Rob in blog post form often enough. More please.On another note, are the last 3 comments above mine for real?!

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from Zach 949 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Thanks Rob...Completely agree that dilution is bad.  If my domains are wine, they turn a little more into water with every new TLD release.

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