Re: Competing Domain-Name Registries Creating Tower of Cyber-Babel

["Anthony Atkielski" <anthony at atkielski.com>]

It doesn't really matter, since, for the average user, there is only one TLD,
and that is COM.

The whole concept of a TLD is an anachronism that does not apply to the
interests of multinational businesses and organizations.  It should be made
invisible to users who don't wish to specify it explicitly.  I have long
advocated a system that uses multiple hidden TLDs that are hashed from the
second-level domain name, but nobody seems interested.  For example, you can
take the first and last alphanumeric characters of a second-level domain name,
put x in front, and create a hashed TLD which you automatically append to the
name, so that the user doesn't have to enter it, for example:

"ibm" entered in a browser generates "web.ibm.xim"
"disneyland" entered in a browser generates "web.disneyland.xdd"
"coca-cola" entered in a browser generates "web.coca-cola.xca"

and so on.

This randomly distributes second-level domains over 1296 implicit TLDs, and
since a given name can hash to only one TLD, the TLD can be computed from the
name, and so the user need only enter the second-level name.  The "web." on the
front just provides a distinct hostname for the Web server for the convenience
of the domain owner.  By doing this all the TLDs are eliminated (except for
those who still wish to type a TLD explicitly--obviously .COM et al. will be
around for some time to come), and you don't have this nonsense about a hundred
different companies trying to come up with hundreds of different TLDs.

Nobody is ever going to visit domains with names like .shop, anyway, so it
doesn't matter who actually owns domains in those TLDs.

The current arrangement of TLDs is like requiring every company in the U.S. to
append the abbreviation of its home state to its name: IBM-NY, Coca-Cola-GA,
Adobe-CA, Microsoft-WA, and so on.  It's a technical requirement that has no
utility from a mnemonic or business standpoint.  By using implicit, hashed TLDs,
you can eliminate the need to specify a TLD explicitly, and you can distribute
the second-level domains evenly over a large number of TLDs without any fear of
duplication or any need to register any name for more than one TLD (namely, the
TLD to which it hashes).

The glaring error being made by everyone right now is in the assumption that
more explicit TLDs are the answer.  In fact, they just add to the problem, by
making a bad design worse.  TLDs are for the computer and the occasional
specialist to type in explicitly; for everyday use for businesses and the like,
the TLD should be inferred by the computer from the second-level name.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Fleming" <JimFleming at prodigy.net>
To: "ietf at ietf. org" <ietf at ietf.org>
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2001 01:06
Subject: Competing Domain-Name Registries Creating Tower of Cyber-Babel


> http://biz.yahoo.com/st/010705/27694.html
> Competing Domain-Name Registries Creating Tower of Cyber-Babel
> By James Ledbetter - European Executive Editor
>
> Proof of Concept TLD Development...and Multiple TLD Clusters
> http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/ietf/Current/msg12215.html
> "Multiple TLD Clusters are new. There is merit in having redundancy.
> Unfortunately, consumers will have to learn through their registrar
> or registry, that they would be prudent to register in BOTH TLD Cluster
> for the most reliable, stable service, with the widest reach."
>
> http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/ietf/Current/msg12574.html
> RFC-2001-07-01-000 IPv8 Expansion of Proof of Concept TLD Development
>
>
> Jim Fleming
> http://www.DOT-Arizona.com
> http://www.DOT.Arizona
>
>
>