The Register has a good coverage on why it has taken so long. I really don't know whether this is a good idea or not.
I understand the Internet has developped from its early days as a military project in the US, DARPAnet, into a tool used all around the world by hundreds of millions of people (how many Internet users out there?).
Regulation for the Internet should be handed over now to international institutions. I posted earlier this month, a guide to the major Internet Institutions. Nevertheless, some of the major bodies such as ICANN (that gets to decides in this case on domain names) are still part of the US administraiton (US department of Commerce). Joi, an ICANN board member, says the goal is to become independent by 2006.
Putting bureaucratic and democratic concerns to a side, my concern is that domain name TLDs (top level domain names) really don't make sense to me:
a. Browsers can ignore TLDs: Have you ever tried the CTRL-ENTER sequence in most modern browsers ? It will automatically change 'glowria' for instance into 'http://www.glowria.com'. The TLDs are just squeezed here. There are even addons that will automatically browse through all combinations such as .com, .net, .org, etc. to find a domain name for you. Why do you need a TLD ?
b. TLDs are confusing: originally there were a small number of TLD to make managing DNS (domain name system) servers easier: .com (for commercial companies), .gov (for government agencies), .mil (for military institutions), etc. and .xx for countries. The USA has never really used .us, whereas many other countries/people have started using TLDs such .net and .org such as myself with sepulveda.net and sepulveda.org. Where it is clear that a .fr is based in France (the french authority asks for a proof of company registration), you usually have no clue where a .tv service (Tuvalu) is located. (You can access the list of all country codes here.)
c. it is completely un-economical for companies to use this system. In order to prevent domain name squatting, most companies have to buy dozens of domain names (most countries in their region, or the world) just to protect themselves. That's like a dozen dollars multiplied by the number of TLDs, multiplied by the number of brands, multiplied by variations of the brand (for instance, I have had to register RISCpartners.com and RISC-Partners.com with a dash in the middle).
No wonder this is a real business for many registrar companies. But completely stupid to protect yourself (look at the time spent doing this, and managing renewals). Yes, WIPO in Geneva will help you regain your domain name, but it will take time, money, and effort: in the meantime, the more domain names out there, the more work you need to plan.
d. Search engines are doing all the work already: how many times have you tried to enter a keyword into Google to find a web site ? It's amazing that many people actually go into google first, type a keyword, click on the first result, instead of just typing the whole domain name.
e. Lazy people even use bookmarks to track domain names. Think of this like mobile phone usage: many of us don't even remember the phone numbers of our friends: it's stored on the address book, and we just press dial. Same for bookmarks: who really cares about domain names ?
Although an .eu domain name will make me feel good as a passionate European, it will not help my business: I'll have to register all my domain names with .eu again. What a waste of time and money.
Hence, I believe a proper way to manage access to information on the Internet will be through a simplified keyword system (such as AOL's Keyword), entered in the address bar, powered by google or someone else (I remember there was a company doing this although I don't remember its name).
Now the last blow? Mobile computing is developping. Who the hell wants to keep typing with either the keyboard or a stylus ? Indeed, with a mobile phone keyboard it is very tedious:
h - t - t - p - : - / - / - w - . - w - . w . - s - e - p - u - l - v -e - d - a - . - n - e - t <enter>
ICANN ? Please make my life easier, will ya ?
thoughts ?
Update on 3/4/05: the JdN did a survey on 31/3/05. It seems about 41% of respondents consider the .eu to be useless.
