Why we will not be registering easydns.sucks
blog.easydns.org
blog.easydns.org
Also, being able to get the domain name you want is a form of free speech, and we should be open to it, even if the intent is to discredit a company.
Many places and people believe there should be limits to free speech if it's in the public good.
Those people are wrong.
Because they collect $0.18 USD per domain per year.
It's like they're just totally admitting that new TLDs are moronic and pointless and have absolutely nothing to do with increasing domain name space or providing value for the Internet community.
Did they ever claim otherwise?
And at some point I thought it was, well, at least about DNS. But registrations with no nameservers, or registrations purely to "block" registration seems rather much opposite of resolving names.
The justification for these new names is some of the dumbest I've read. I think Canon or some camera company was saying that with their own TLD, users could automatically share photos. ... WTF? What does that have to do with anything? It's just bizarre.
The best idea is probably just allowing anyone any domain, anytime, for some smallish price. Or force a standard registrar agreement so anyone can buy any second level from any registrar. Then we can just go back to ignoring all these terrible special TLDs. Why get .sucks, when you can have .blows, or .isshit or any other name.
This is a serious question, because I know a lot of people are against the expansion of TLDs (now I wouldn't have put .sucks on the top of my list for expansion, but...) and I haven't seen a real argument against it.
Besides: TLDs function as a lexical tagging mechanism. When you see a string of letters like "foo.com", you recognize the word as a domain name because it's tagged with ".com". If we have thousands of TLDs, it's harder to recognize domain names as domain names.
I don't think any of these concerns will stop our descent to the world of unstructured AOL-keywords-as-DNS, though, and that's a shame.
If I start typing in my address bar "g" then google.com is the first completion suggestion. If I want to get more specific, I can type "n" and news.google.com becomes the first suggestion. Or "m" and I go to mail.google.com. If we had to write "com." before any of these came up, it would mean a serious loss of productivity for everyone. The current system provides one or two layers of specificity before the TLD, then as many more as you would like (like /item?id=9357898 on the end of this URL, something nobody will every type) - it's ideal for everyday use even if it doesn't fit into some clean sorting method you're imagining or something.
For what it's worth, today is 2015/04/11 :)
That the hostname part's components, as presented to users, goes from bottom-to-top in DNS when the rest goes from top-to-bottom is an accident of history, but one it's too late to change (in DNS). Not everything made that mistake however - Usenet didn't.
As for what you're typing in your 'awesome bar', when you start typing, your autocorrect is ranking your visited history: there's no reason it has to start at the beginning, especially when the beginning isn't the root, but there's also no reason that doesn't make sense.
In fact, drifting back to topic: GOOGLE. is in fact a TLD now. If DNS were the 'right' way round, you'd be going to //google.news - wouldn't that make more semantic sense?
Of course, in practice, we're stuck with DNS the way it is because .com is now firmly in the public consciousness. But it could easily have been different, and if I were designing something new, I'd pick the Usenet way round.
Since the AwesomeBar became a thing and I learnt the #, *, ^, + search modifiers [1] I've seldom typed an address.
- - -
[1] http://alicious.com/fast-bookmark-and-history-search-in-fire...
That's a very US-centric view. In most countries the local ccTLD will dominate, so there is _some_ hierarchy.
On that note, I'm fully with the GP. This sort of thing should be enforced. It would help with everything from spam, to fake sites, to weird domain name pollution as discussed here.
They're making a quick buck on the side. I say: all the power to them. The only ones bleeding are squatters.
Embrace the new TLDs! Go wild! Devaluate contemporary domain names! This is how we really hurt the parasites.
If I want to go to Canon's website, I will search for "Canon" or try canon.com.
I'm not going to think "Of course, canon.camera! Or maybe canon.printer or canon.toner!"
What if you wanted a new app, like cup? Now you will be able to differentiate between the different cup's easier?
All those hip new services under .rs or .io? That's not because those TLDs are somehow appropriate, that's because they have some even remotely pronounable names available. If you operated the root zone as an open registry, it would all be squatted. All of it.
Most of it would still be for sale however, but with prices no boostrapped start up could ever afford. That's what happens when you make a virtual resource more scarce.
Namespacing the root zone into TLDs makes sense. But it would be better if it was done tastefully. All these new silly TLDs just make everyone lose trust in ICANN.
Is there anything to stop anyone besides ICANN from setting up a network of FTP mirrors that offer a "clean" root.zone file, free from "new" TLD's? No.
I remember the day when ICANN most recently changed the IP they use for the ftp servers that serve the root.zone file. (It does not change very often; it does not rely on DNS!) I also remember the day that this small text file doubled in size to accomodate all the "new" TLD's. Nothing was mentioned on HN. I guess not many folks use this file? I use it every day.
Is there anything to stop DNS admins from using some other zone file (e.g. editing the one provided by ICANN)? Maybe, but one can only wonder what these things would be.
Another simple question: Why follow ICANN as some sort of "steward" of internet naming? Because there is no possible alternative? We have already shown at least one reason not to follow ICANN. Maybe there are others?
Also very curious to know why you need to work with the zone file on a daily basis?
"IPC also points out a peculiar change to the standard new TLD contract that’s in the .Sucks agreement with ICANN. It includes an additional fee for Vox Populi with $100,000 upfront and $1 for each additional transaction for up to 900,000 transactions. It’s very odd that a registry would agree to pay this additional amount to ICANN."
Sounds cynical, but seriously, very few of their actions make the internet a better place, only them richer.
Whatever the wisdom (or not) of opening up the top-level hierarchy, there's a place for sites saying things suck. If companies want to engage in the futile enterprise of buying up and controlling every name that might host a site that could be critical, they don't deserve sympathy.
One example: Paypal Sucks was a great website that impacted a big company by bringing their terrible policies to people's attention.
Should they also police anti-gay marriage domains, and pro Westboro Baptist Church domains?
I don't think ICANN would allow icann.sucks to exist. Even if that's not explicitly in writing, it would be foolish to bite the supreme leader's hand, wouldn't it?
But FIFA better cough up $2,499 in "protection" money or there will be no shortage of people trying to grab that one.
That says it all. They won't allow themselves to be extorted, but tough luck for everyone else.
Still, I'll go out on a limb and say that PutinSucks.ru will be allowed before icann.sucks happens. :) I guess we'll know soon enough.
What I (like many other posters here) wish would happen is that the world just collectively ignores the .sucks domain. How many TLDs is too many?
Dunno. How many .com domains are too many? People around here put way too much emphasis on the top level part. They're just domains, who cares how many there are.
1. sometimes they sleep
It completely ignores the fact that ease of access to information is a greater determinant of what people learn than existence of information.
Yes, right now it is possible to find discontents of a brand or company by searching and reading through various forums and webpages of differing quality and structure.
However, if there was an easy mnemonic like "just add .sucks to the end of a name" to find the bad things about $NAME then the game would change. It'd be easier for people to organize and oppose companies than anything else imaginable.
And that makes a huge difference. Think of how hard it was to find programming help before stack overflow. This would be a much more potent and wide-ranging way to organize information, because it can still be difficult for a novice to understand what to search for on stack overflow. This would remove even that last bit of friction.
I'm not denying that .sucks is a bold and roguish move. I am asserting that it is an effective move.
The fact that the sunrise registrations are so expensive (as opposed to disallowed altogether) is an even stronger indicator that this is extortion for the purpose of profit, nothing more.
That sounds far fetched. There would be no consistency in the kind of sites you'd get, no way for this to develop into a mnemonic. It would never become such a 'thing' that it could compete with the status quo – that you can just google for negative stuff about any company or person and get multiple, relevant results (instead of just the ravings of one particular random person who had a grievance).
I can't understand how offering .sucks is positive for anyone, .reviews maybe.
Also, I can imagine something like an fabproduct.rocks would be a magnet for troll types and quickly descend in to a general bun fight arena.
So as a reaction to that ICANN allow new generic TLDs to be registered. In and of itself, I don't think that's a bad idea. However the $180,000 registration fee seems a bit like a money grab, the lack of restrictions on the allowed names (e.g. .sucks) and the land-grabbing by large companies on a wide range of generic names (mainly from what I've seen Google and Amazon) have made the process a bit of a mess.
"IPC also points out a peculiar change to the standard new TLD contract that’s in the .Sucks agreement with ICANN. It includes an additional fee for Vox Populi with $100,000 upfront and $1 for each additional transaction for up to 900,000 transactions. It’s very odd that a registry would agree to pay this additional amount to ICANN."
http://domainnamewire.com/2015/03/27/ipc-asks-icann-to-halt-...
On the other hand, ICANN made a whole lot of money out of it, so that's something.
The majority of people will recognize .com and maybe .net. Beyond that it's a stretch in my opinion and you're only going to get visitors via searches or links. I can't imagine anyone is going to think "oh I wonder what microsoft's latest press releases are; I'll just go to microsoft.press". No, they're going to search for it.
In all honesty domains in general are not very user friendly. I wouldn't be surprised if they are eventually replaced for a system that's more of a search than anything. I mean just look at all of the domain names being squatted on and for what? Half the times you can pick a different domain name, still name your product what you want and people will still find you due to search.
There's no need to replace anything. Nobody[1] uses domain names any more to browse the web. That's what Google, the default browser home page, and the omni-bar is for. I don't know a single non-web-developer who uses domain names. Everybody just drops "facebook" or "google"(?!) in the search box that shows up when the browser opens.
1. Well, nobody except for a rounding error number of people who hang out in places like HN.
I get your point about the general public, but there is more to the internet and domain names than web browsing :)
(It drives everyone else who's used my laptop for anything crazy - typing something in the address bar only searches my history / bookmarks, no remote communication. If you want to search, use the search bar.)
Though, that being said, I find myself only rarely typing ULs. More of the time the browser is pulling the URL from bookmarks / history.
- RFCs 882 and 883 (1983).
A website is one of those resources.
DNS is 15 years older then HTTP so of course it's not meant to be used that way. Domain names where put in different configuration files once, and then your mail client, IRC client, NTP client and so on just worked forever. With HTTP you suddenly started to use domain names by typing them over and over agian.
Personally I'm not sure the web will look like this in the future. I think domain names will be hidden from users once again. Netflix will of course use domain names internally to get content from their servers, but the user only needs to find the Netflix app from som App-store.
I also don't see domain names becoming invisible any time soon, simply because linking is too damn useful, and most companies have to incentive to destroy that.
If a significant portion of the domains a user visits on a new TLD are shady, they may just write it off.
Someone who googles easydns will find the official easydns website. easydns.sucks will rank lower, if at all.
This isn't using a single mark to refer to a product for criticism and commentary; this is using an unlimited number of marks for promotion of the registrar's sites. (In addition to using the mark in the ways you mentioned.)
That is, the registrar's goal isn't to refer to PayPal, but to use the domain PayPal.sucks (and potentially every protected mark plus ".sucks") to draw traffic.
I guess the legality of this use will need to be decided by the courts.
For trademark infringement, there has to be "likelihood of confusion", i.e. your use of their trademark could lead to people thinking that your goods/services originated from the trademark owner. In the case of someone explicitly critisizing a company, this could never be argued.
It's an interesting legal question, essentially arguing that adding the magic word "sucks" allows using trademarks to promote their site (perhaps even to advertise competing products).
The law is fluid, and nominative use is a fairly new legal idea. We're not going to settle the question here, but it will be interesting to see what the courts decide.
Of course it's fine to market a series of magazines called "_____ sucks". It's just expressing an opinion. Trademark law doesn't come into it, unless the trademark owner can prove that consumers might reasonably think your use of their trademark is somehow authorised or affiliated with them. In the case of "____ sucks", that would be self-evidently not the case.
Simply adding "sucks" is not a free pass to do whatever you want with a trademark.
I didn't say it was a free pass to do anything. You can't lie about the company, for example. But that would be libel, not trademark infringement. As long as it's obvious to consumers that your use of the trademark is not on behalf of or authorised by the company, then it's not trademark infringement.
And yes, simply adding "sucks" would pretty much always be a free pass against trademark infringement , except in really contrived scenarios, like if the trademark was a brand of vacuum cleaners :)
That said, the Dumb Starbucks example is interesting, I think that's in a grey area, the kind of edge case you're talking about. Starbucks might well be able to demonstrate that some customers thought it was official (albeit obscure) marketing effort by them, especially because it's a coffee shop.
At the extreme edge, could I use MicrosoftSucks.com to sell Apple products? Microsoft products?
Are you a lawyer? I'm not, so I'm looking for rulings in relevant court cases to clarify the issues and provide an authoritative answer.
http://www.ibtimes.com/dumb-starbucks-coffee-trademark-law-b...
"Lawyers who specialize in trademark and copyright law say not so fast. While parody is generally a protected form of speech, there is no clear-cut legal definition of what separates legitimate parody from trademark infringement. The reality is, any infringement case that makes its way into a courtroom will be evaluated on its own merits, with judges weighing various factors against a body of existing legal precedents. Historically, cases could go either way."
In which country? It doesn't matter to the registrant where the registrar is, if the registrant is in a country that doesn't protect open commentary.
- It is dirt cheap to bid on paid search brand terms for "brand sucks." Be smart in where you take people and you manage against concerns.
- Having an exact match domain is not anywhere near as useful as it used to be per Matt Cutts[1]. Someone would have to also manage to rank for your brand terms consistently for it to be of any note. I would laugh so hard if this went the route of .info and became recognized as a poor quality TLD that didn't rank worth a hoot.
- There is no avoiding the vocal minority of upset customers. If you have an awesome product/service, you have nothing to worry about. Focus your energy and budgets on positive things and don't look back.
icann.sucks
sucks.sucks ?
TL;DR: anyone can register easydns-sucks.com or anything like it anyway. No need to "protect" yourself by buying [yourdomain].sucks at exorbitant prices.
It should be pretty easy to automate the process. The down-side is that if you're Comcast (or one of the other common targets) you're probably going to have to live with a .sucks site. Try not to incite people into believing you suck so much!
My experience with easydns is that they are like us. They care about their customers, they care about doing the right thing, and they do that even when it hurts.
Great company. Very slightly more expensive than the cheapest but they are definitely in the you get what you pay for category.