Comments on: Comments on 9222

Post number 9222

rschram — Tue, 24 Jul 2001 10:31:25 -0800

University of Colombia, registrar of the ".co" ccTLD, wants to sell the new dot com
The University of Columbia is in charge of assigning names to Columbian domains, and it wants to get in on the same act as Tuvalu, Togo, and the US. Dissenters say its a public trust. Of course, much like newly minted TLDs like .biz etc., yahoo.com will of course want yahoo.co, and so on. Is there no solution?

By: EatenByAGrue

EatenByAGrue — Tue, 24 Jul 2001 10:50:50 -0800

Uh, not to be nit-picky, but according to the article, it is the University of the Andes in Bogota, Colombia which administers ".co", not the University of Columbia. Big difference.

By: rschram

rschram — Tue, 24 Jul 2001 10:52:08 -0800

No, that's a fair observation -- at least I didn't say "Columbia University!"

By: jpoulos

jpoulos — Tue, 24 Jul 2001 11:23:28 -0800

There's also a big difference between "Colombia" and "Columbia". Sorry. It's a pet peeve.

By: Vetinari

Vetinari — Tue, 24 Jul 2001 11:27:30 -0800

simple solution: add a new layer atop DNS, which maps corporate brands to hostnames. Administer this layer much like a trademark office - make businesses pay to register these names and maintain that registration. Give each nation's brandspace to that nation's trademark office. Some PTOs may wish to automatically enter trademark registrations into brandspace as well. Convert current corporate domain ownership to a spot in this new brandspace scheme. Then return DNS to its designed capacity: to map names to nodes and networks, not to dot-coms, movies and marketing campaigns. Classify brandspace much like trademark space is classified. This has the added bonus of removing the ambiguity across trademark classes: i.e. National Rent-a-Car, National Semiconductor, and National Cash Register both have trade rights to the term "National" in different classes, but only one can have national.com. Brandspace fixes this by allowing the real world disambiguity ("I want a car, not an inventory solution") to be reflected in the brand name mapping space. Big losers: NetSol and all the registrars that are getting rich off all those entrepreneurs that want to be the next pimentoloaf.com, but hey, they don't have a natural right to profit off the sale of an artificially scarce, artificial commodity. The domain-name auction industry. Squatters (which I would argue are simply a superset of the first two). I'm sure I read something about a scheme like this elsewhere.

By: dave

dave — Tue, 24 Jul 2001 12:07:30 -0800

There have been some domains, like .nu and .cx that have been available for a number of years. They realized that more money could be made by opening up the domain name to people outside the country. I know a number of people who picked up the .nu domains because at the time you only had to register them for one year and the cost was a lot lower. As far as companies protecting their brand, Yahoo has registered a .nu, but Microsoft has not. This might have something to do with yahoo having services for many different countries (ie Canada).

By: rschram

rschram — Tue, 24 Jul 2001 12:37:36 -0800

The URL ``http://www.yahoo.nu'' is not a valid Yahoo! URL.
You probably want the following URL: http://www.yahoo.com/

Not the case for Yahoo in .nu

By: Steven Den Beste

Steven Den Beste — Tue, 24 Jul 2001 12:47:23 -0800

I can't figure out why a solution is needed, because I can't see a problem.

By: rschram

rschram — Tue, 24 Jul 2001 12:52:50 -0800

because I can't see a problem. It could be viewed as a logistical problem rather than a social one...

By: dave

dave — Tue, 24 Jul 2001 16:25:41 -0800

If you check out the domain info you'll see that yahoo.nu is registered by Yahoo Inc. The site is part of the Yahoo network they just haven't set up a regional Yahoo site for the island of Nieu.

By: fooljay

fooljay — Tue, 24 Jul 2001 18:30:16 -0800

Vetinari, I believe RealNames comes closest to real-world implementation of you idea. Not that it does so very well or equitably...

By: Ptrin

Ptrin — Tue, 24 Jul 2001 18:31:22 -0800

Hasn't MeFi already covered the whole, "ICANN can't" issue?

By: dhartung

dhartung — Tue, 24 Jul 2001 21:40:42 -0800

I'm trying to think of how extensive a Yahoo! for Nieu would be. (It's a tiny island in free association with New Zealand, where many of its residents live, the phosphate industry having died out.) Just as the .tv, .nu and .cx deals have been profitable for the people in whose name they are presumed to be entrusted, I would only support this if Colombia were getting something really worthwhile. Is .co really going to become that popular? Perhaps. How often will there be namespace collisions? Is there going to be a reserved alternative for Colombian citizens, or will they be priced out of the market for domains? I'm really disturbed that this is apparently mainly going to benefit the registrar, the university. What does the Colombian government think?

By: ParisParamus

ParisParamus — Tue, 24 Jul 2001 21:43:20 -0800

Silly people: a glut of domain names is just around the corner. Relax.