Google's .meme domain is here to serve your wackiest websites | Hacker News Reader

Google's .meme domain is here to serve your wackiest websites

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43 pointsFinnKuhn23 comments

I'm not thrilled at seeing Google grow in the registry space as I think that they already have too much influence over the internet as it is, but at least they didn't take another file extension as a TLD.

How does google get the right to create net TLDs? Can I create a TLD?

You can, if you can demonstrate the ability to maintain a gTLD registry and can cough up hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.

Who does that money go to?

It goes to ICANN. You can learn about their program at https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/program

You don't need that. Just run a dns server which returns the appropriate results for the tld of your choice. Getting others to recognize and repeat might need a little "grease".

They applied for them as part of ICANN's New gTLD program in 2012. Due to overwhelming demand (and bureaucratic slowness), it's been a very slow process getting those applications approved and implemented.

https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/program

Yes you can create a TLD.

The question is what assumptions are implied by "TLD". Will it be used by other people. How many. Will there be a registry. Will the registry "rent" domain names as some sort of business. Will you try to get the nameservers for the TLD listed in someone else's root.zone file, e.g., ICANN's.

It's possible to create a TLD that makes none of these assumptions. For example, I have some TLDs I created on the home network.

The idea of a "right" to create a TLD assumes some sort of valid legal or regulatory framework. But this does not exist. There is an imaginary authority that relies 100% on voluntary compliance, embodied in a private US corporation called "ICANN", but it's imagined "authority" has no basis in the law of any country. It will gladly take peoples' money but it offers no means of enforcing the "rights" it purports to "grant".

Trademark law is perhaps the only legal framework governing what you do with your TLD. But the idea that a TLD must resemble a trademark is yet another assumption, not a requirement. For example, the TLDs I created for use on the home network cannot be confused with any trademark.

And domain names do not need to look like trademarks either.

It's worth mentioning that you can't become a domain registrar yourself. It's a privilege for the rich to make even more money

While I am not thrilled by this, it's still better than the horrid ".zip" and ".mov" domains they pushed a few months ago. They could have doubled down and started pushing ".exe", ". docx", or ". rar" domains...

Sounds on brand for Google, which was one of the first companies I'd heard of to have an internal meme generator on their intranet.

So then why did they sell Google Domains?

Probably to cut what overhead there was in servicing users directly.

Google is still operating TLDs as "Google Registry" since they can just easy mode that part as a backend service, they just push you now to go to a domain reseller.

Because Registrars are high-effort (customers are the general public), low unit price, low-margin and Registries are low effort (customers are only Registrars), high unit price, and high margin.

Official announcement: https://blog.google/products/registry/google-registry-meme-d...

I'm surprised to see that lol.meme is currently available.

Gandi lists lol.meme as a premium domain for over $800. We're also in the early access period where even normal domains cost thousands of dollars to reserve.

Some are that expensive but most 4+ letter domains seem to be around $75, going down to $25 for longer names (on Gandi at least):

https://shop.gandi.net/en/domain/suggest?search=Microsoft.me...

I’m not sure if they’re keeping track for pre registration, everything I checked is available including single letters.

I wouldn't trust google to point to the blandest of memes let alone a spicy one.

Pre-registration seems interesting. I wonder if I'll actually get the domain I tried to register.

godaddy wants over 1k for me.meme

my fingers are likely faster

As with most of the recent additions this is just so insignificant in the scheme of things as anyone with whatever idea has a million options for their domain and whatever ends up getting promoted, and more importantly, linked to, is what will work. Hardly anyone is typing the domains so it's just a marketing tag.

Also kinda generally resent the meme culture we have created, what it has come to represent. A whole generation of toxicity has come from it (doing/approaching everything for the lols etc). That fact that stonks whatever is listed in the official blog post. The old misc cat things and whatever were fun at first but what came after..blech.

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