Canon to begin acquisition of the ".canon" Top-Level Domain name | Hacker News Reader

Canon to begin acquisition of the ".canon" Top-Level Domain name

canon.com

42 pointseswat54 comments

I am th only one who hate the idea of generic top-level domains? Will their web site be accessible just as http://.canon? .

Yes, but it will redirect. It won't be canonical.

I see what you did there...

Looks like I accidentally ended up at Reddit...

There's nothing technical DNS-wise that would prevent the name 'canon' from resolving to an IP address, so http://canon could work. They could also add a MX record for the name 'canon' so @canon e-mail addresses would work too. Maybe ICANN has rules around gTLDs that would prevent this type of use?

I'm sure this will break a ridiculous number of regular expressions for email address validation.

Yes, but that is their own fault for trying to use a regex to validate email addresses. :)

(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:(?:(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t] )+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))"(?:(?: \r\n)?[ \t]))(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:( ?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])))@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\0 31]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\ ](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+ (?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?: (?:\r\n)?[ \t])))|(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z |(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))"(?:(?:\r\n) ?[ \t]))\<(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:@(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\ r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n) ?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t] )))(?:,@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])* )(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t] )+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])))) :(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))?(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+ |\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))"(?:(?:\r \n)?[ \t]))(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?: \r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t ]))"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])))@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031 ]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\]( ?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(? :(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(? :\r\n)?[ \t])))\>(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))|(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(? :(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)? [ \t]))"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])):(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:(?:(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]| \\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<> @,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|" (?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])))@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t] )(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\ ".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(? :[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[ \]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])))|(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000- \031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|( ?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))\<(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:@(?:[^()<>@,; :\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([ ^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\" .\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\ ]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])))(?:,@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\ [\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\ r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\] |\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])))):(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))?(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \0 00-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\ .|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@, ;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(? :[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])))@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])* (?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\". \[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[ ^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\] ]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])))\>(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))(?:,\s( ?:(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\ ".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))(?:\.(?:( ?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[ \["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t ])))@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t ])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))(? :\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+| \Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])))|(?: [^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\ ]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))\<(?:(?:\r\n) ?[ \t])(?:@(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\[" ()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n) ?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<> @,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])))(?:,@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@, ;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t] )(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\ ".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])))):(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))? (?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\". \[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))(?:\.(?:(?: \r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\[ "()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]) ))@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]) +|\Z|(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))(?:\ .(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])(?:[^()<>@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z |(?=[\["()<>@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])))\>(?:( ?:\r\n)?[ \t]))))?;\s)

I wish people would stop posting that. Yes, that covers most (though not all) of the RFC definitions of what constitutes an email address, but in practice you only want to accept a tiny subset of those.

Curious: Why would you want to accept only a tiny subset of those? What do you gain by that?

Well, the really simple example is the string "postmaster". It is a perfectly legitimate email address, and almost always deliverable. But rarely something you want to actually accept.

regardless of the rules there are a few tlds that route mail and resolve to websites. http://to./ comes to mind, but there are a few others.

Its a domain squatter's dream come true.

Or is the end (eventually) for the squatting game? When there are hundreds or thousands of alternatives for xyz.com, won't that seriously diminish the worth of any one in particular?

Doesn't matter. Most will be found by Google search.

it is not a domain squatter's dream come true, it is the DNS bureaucracy cabal's dream come true.

It has little value for users/consumers (i.e., won't remember if they want canon.com or canon.canon). It has little value for businesses, because it means more time and money monitoring for domain squatting and trademark infringement. It provides yet another playing field for scammers and other predators.

The only benefit is to the upper levels in the DNS hiearchy, gives them more revenue to perpetuate themselves and to come up with more user-hostile ideas.

I agree, and as I said, it really doesn't matter. The vast majority of people are going to get what they need through Google, and to a lessor extent, the other search engines.

It has little value for users/consumers (i.e., won't remember if they want canon.com or canon.canon).

Actually if you buy an arbitrary top level domain, there will be no more .com.

Instead it will be .google, .apple or .hackernews

You have to pay ICANN hundreds of thousands of dollars to get one of these new gTLD's. Domain squatters will not be allowed.

I don't hate it, indeed I like the idea of.anigbrowl or so :-) I think domain names themselves are transient, in recent years I find myself doing things like searching for 'Canon camera' and letting Chrome and Google take care of the routing.

This post automatically generated by Google.com in response to inarticulate mumblings by user anigbrowl

No you're not. I'm still getting over the trauma of .info, .tv et al.

http://canon./, rather. Like http://to./

Most lesser-known TLDs with a central registrar already do this by giving themselves the www.TLD. record; for example http://www.tv/ or http://www.name/. When you try just "tv./" or "name./" in your browser, it'll try those as well, without having to muddy up the main record.

I thought the dot was a separator. Why do we have to have one at all? Why the canonical URL shouldn't be http://cannon/ ?

http://canon/ would refer to whatever canon was local to your gateway's DNS host record (I believe; I can't find the exact term for it.) For example, my computer is d207-6-247-238.bchsia.telus.net. If I type "canon" into anything that calls gethostbyname(), it assumes I mean canon.bchsia.telus.net. When that doesn't resolve, then it tries "canon."

http://canon./, on the other hand, refers to the "canon" that is located at the "root directory" of the internet—that is, ".". Most addresses don't need this, because once you specify any more than a host name, it assumes the rest of the domain "path" is a fully-qualified DNS record, and doesn't bother checking your local network for it.

Actually http://canon./ (http://canon/ would also work in rare cases (No DNS search domain set and the browser also doesn't try to interpret it as a keyword.))

"With the adoption of the new gTLD system, which enables the direct utilization of the Canon brand, Canon hopes to globally integrate open communication policies that are intuitive and easier to remember compared with existing domain names such as "canon.com.""

Yeah, because canon.com is really unintuitive and hard to remember.

Besides, I'm thinking lots of confusion will ensue. You see a TV ad: "Visit us on the web at canon!" Typical human being: "Well, what's their address? They forgot to tell!"

"Visit us at ICANN keyword Canon!"

Who's going to be the first to try registering pachelbels.canon?

This really is going to be like the early days of the Internet all over again.

I'm going for nikon.is-so-much-better-than.canon

even though i shoot with a 40D ;)

Honestly, I wish this is how it was from the very beginning (minus the huge cost of entry).

If you think about it, what really was the point of .com, .net, .org etc... Does it really make sense that you can have both twitter.com and twitter.net? In both cases, you recognize "twitter" as the name, with .com and .net as fodder. And considering that twitter does not own twitter.net shows how meaningless that .net domain is.

So you currently have twitter.com/yourname, when it could be just yourname.twitter. Or yourname.facebook. And instead of yourname@gmail.com, it would just be yourname@gmail. blahblah@hotmail. whosit@yahoo. mikeymike@doodad. stevejobs@apple. pg@yc.

Furthermore, the ".com" has always been a blemish to branding. You have this beautiful simple brand name (Nike, Apple, Cisco) but then you have to advertise the url (nike.com, apple.com, cisco.com), both decapping your name and sticking the .com on the end.

I know this whole .com, .net, .org, .ly has been ingrained into our structure and psyche, but just consider the above to see how much simpler it could be.

Shoot, was it MyWedding.canon or MyWedding.nikon?

Cannon would likely have e05.cannon i bet you meant to type MyWedding.HackerNewsPhotographyInc

Thats not so bad, in my opinion.

This, completely separately from anything Canon the company is doing, seems like a useful TLD. HarryPotter.canon, Firefly.canon, etc—to be able to tell when you're not looking at a fan-site of a creative work, but rather a place where any messages delivered through it can be considered, well, canonical.

Since when can you tell anything about a site by looking at the TLD?

To register a .ca domain, I have to be a Canadian citizen. To register a .edu domain, you have to be an accredited university (and you don't really "register" for it either—you just tell EDUCASE who the administrative contact is going to be, and they set everything else up.) In my fantasy-land, .canon could be handled by some international dual of the Writer's Guild in the same way.

So, Canon realizes that half of the programs in the world (if not more) that autodetect urls aren't going to detect http://canon or anemailusername@cannon as urls/emails, right?That limits what they can really do with this.

I guess they could have other stuff redirect to http://canon, and urls for "subdomains", which are now normal domains, become nice and might catch some more url detectors. http://slr.canon and the like. It's still a major problem.

Of course, they own canon.com, and http://canon will generally redirect there. Then they set up their own nameserver to simply do things like redirect blah.blah.canon.com to blah.blah.canon.

Then you find yourself asking what the point of all this is again because DNS is already hierarchical and once you own canon.com you already own an effectively-infinite series of subdomains, so Canon is spending $185,000 + ongoing maintenance so they can trim ".com" off and incur first-mover expenses as they encounter those problems you mention and that seems hardly worth it. But hey, who am I to argue?

IMHO too many TLD is harmful. It creates conflict with LAN hostnames.

User: I can't get to the canon website it just shows a print queue for the other floor.

Sysadmin: . . . %$#%#$%@

"The new gTLD system is expected to allow a company name, brand name, geographic region, or service type to be used as a gTLD within website and e-mail addresses."

So I guess we can expect more of these soon. Probably a few years of super expensive costs before the floodgates are opened.

I like this. For years, people have been tasked with remembering if a site was .com, .org, etc. My parents often just type "google" or "ebay" into the address bar, and expect it to go there. Now it will, using proper DNS architecture instead of relying on google or opendns.

The address bar? If so, your parents are a rare breed indeed. Most people, even programmers, even when given the exact domain name, even with "awesome" auto completion, use the search bar anyway.

Is this an attempt to bypass search engines? So I go to an address bar, and search for "canon" which in the old days would do a google search on that... but on the new days checks for a TLD and goes to http://canon ... ?

The general public already has enough trouble remembering what sites are .com, .net, and .org, and most are flummoxed by amusing uses of other national TLDs. What purpose can this possibly serve Canon other than as a status symbol?

The general public will get used to it, I imagine.

does anybody know what you have to do to register your own top-level domain? i hope it's very very expensive, or else we've got another early-nineties-style land-grab on our hands.

It's pretty darn expensive, starting with a $185,000 "evaluation fee" to ICANN, and then whatever it costs to run a registrar. (I expect you'll be able to outsource the latter.)

See http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/strategy-faq.htm

Lets all pitch in and buy .localdomain ...

The Internet needs a better API, architecture.

DNS is a wonderful protocol for the most part. The problems you think you have with it are almost certainly problems with the centrally-run canonical DNS, but nothing stops you from not using it. You can use whatever DNS you like, set up a parallel internet if you like. Of course, nobody can find you, but that's the price of nonconformity. However, the mere fact that this is possible will always tend to rein in the central repository, because if they get bad enough, we can leave. It might hurt, but we can leave.

My name is krallja and I am a Reddit addict. I am using this method to delete Reddit from my entire home network, and continue down the road to recovery.

This sounds really interesting. Would you advise some further reading on this topic? Thanks.

Honestly, the Wikipedia article is a pretty good start. From there you can branch out into the RFCs if you want to really dig in, or go some other routes.

By the way, don't be afraid to read the actual RFCs; many of them are quite approachable with only moderate knowledge. Most of them discuss not just the what, but the why, and it's generally OK to skip a section you don't care about. Then, after reading the RFCs, you'll usually find that even if you still don't understand it all, you understand it better than most people.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com