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cletus

I see new gTLDs as a good thing.

Obviously the registrars are in it for the money but this will be like the new .com domain but with several advantages:

1. The high price will eliminate squatting;

2. The lack of squatting will greatly reduce phishing through real-looking domains;

3. The price is low enough that startups with serious series A/B funding will probably buy their gTLD; and

4. gTLDs may well be out of the jurisdiction of ICE and the US government (unlike .com and .net domains as witnessed by recent seizures).

Bring it on, I say.

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I wish I saw any basis for 1, 2, or 4. Unless by "eliminate squatting" you mean "eliminate TLD squatting", which would make 2 as irrelevant as 3.

In particular, "real-looking domains" have never been a required detail of phishing attacks, which only have to look plausible on the right side to do damage. A profusion of TLDs only serves to degrade what "real-looking" means to non-nerds.

Firstly, squatting is a problem that ICANN itself created (or at least contributed to creation of) through their broken reseller policies. Since squatting drives domain prices up, it might even be financiall beneficial to ICANN.

Secondly, squatting is mainly a problem because it drives the prices up, especially for small website owners. Sure, you can buy a cool domain you want, but it will be $1k, instead of eight dollars. A corporation could simply sue for their brand name. How will thse new expensive gTLDs solve this problem?

Thirdly, I would argue that the same effect you describe could be achieved simply by creating .corp domain that is more expensive and has some checks in regards to business legitimacy. That would be less disruptive for everyone.

New gTLDs could have been be a good things, but not when they are "released" like this.

Firstly, squatting is a problem that ICANN itself created (or at least contributed to creation of) through their broken reseller policies.

Would you mind elaborating on that? I'm curious what you think they should have done.

There are two issues that, in my opinion, contribute to massive squatting problem.

First, squatters can buy domains in bulk and pay next to nothing for each of them. (Sometimes they pay nothing at all, abusing trial periods and renewal rules.) This is what makes squatting on such a massive scale possible.

Second, modern DNS structure is effectively a global namespace: there are only a handful of TLDs that matter and they are awfully generic, so they collide. TLDs do not classify anything, and they should. Also, if someone bought the name you want, there are no equivalent (but different) alternatives. That's another thing that makes squatting profitable.

1. Squatters are still going to squat. They will continue to squat on the existing gTLDs, and since one of the requirements of the application process is that you can prove you can run a registrar, almost all the new gTLDs will be registrars, selling domains. They won't be corporations. So the squatters will also squat there.

2. There's no proof of this, and it's quite doubtful.

3. I really hope no VC member of the board would let a startup waste their money on this. If they would, I never want to hear from that VC ever. Also remember that the 185k application fee is the tip of the iceberg in terms of what this will cost.

4. There's no proof of this. If the infrastructure ends up running in the US, good luck arguing that.

3. You can only get them if you are an established brand. 4. Are you sure? I think they will be still under US jurisdiction.

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