Is allowing the commercial creation of new top level domains (TLD) a good idea?

No

1 of 1

by Nathan Edwards

Write now Print Invite a writer™ Add to Favorites RSS Feed Contact this writer

ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the organization that governs all of the generic TLDs (i.e. .com, .net, .org) recently announced a proposal to allow anyone with $185,000 to buy their own TLD. The proposal was incredibly vague and, fortunately, has yet to be implemented. There are several reasons why this is an incredibly stupid idea, and only goes to serve commercial interests at the expense of consumers.

First, allowing the policy to be enacted would further the disorganization of the Internet. Sure, the Internet is already disorganized plenty (which is why Google and other search engines fare so well), but at the very least, the majority of domain names fall under the .com, .org, or .net TLDs. Most people don't even know that TLDs such as .aero, .biz, or .name even exist. So, for example, allowing GM to create the .chevy TLD would only confuse consumers looking for the Chevrolet site. This brings me to my next point.

When people see an advertisement that promotes, for example, helium.com, they instantly realize that the advertisement is trying to promote a website. Furthermore, people know exactly what to type in their browsers (helium.com). However, when someone sees an ad promoting debates.helium, he/she is going to get confused as to what the ad is referring to, and will definitely not know to type that address into his/her browser.

Next, the domain registration market would eventually collapse. As more companies buy up TLDs, and then open them up for cheap domain name registration, webmasters will go with the cheapest option available to them. This will eventually render all of the gTLDs obsolete and too costly for what it's worth. However, as more and more domain registration companies join the market with their own TLD, registration will become cheaper and cheaper, and profit margins will grow less and less until the bubble bursts.

Also, there is no mention in the proposal as to who would be maintaining the new TLDs. I strongly doubt that ICANN would want to take the burden and cost of such an enormous setup and maintenance task, and thus would leave that in the hands of the companies buying the TLDs. This is bad for several reasons. First, the DNS registries and root nameservers of each TLD are heavily secured and are maintained well. As of current, they are maintained by companies and corporations that are heavily trusted by the Internet industry (i.e. VeriSign). Placing control of these servers in random companies who just have spare cash lying around is dangerous and stupid, and would lower the quality of the Internet as a whole. I'm sure hackers would love to get at poorly secured registries of TLDs.

The reason why this policy is even being considered in the first place is that ICANN is not a government organization. Rather, it is a non-profit private corporation that was chartered by the U.S. government to oversee the Internet's 13 root nameservers, IP address allocation, and gTLDs. So, ICANN stands to make an enormous profit by allowing companies to create their own TLDs. Also, since ICANN is a non-profit and has to unload all of that money by the end of the fiscal year, I'm going to assume that the ICANN board members will be taking home a nice bonus; there's really no other way for them to spend that much money that quickly.

Thus, implementing this policy is a dangerous and stupid idea, and ultimately could endanger the vitality of the Internet and its infrastructure. ICANN would probably make a killing, but it would come at the expense of consumers.

Learn more about this author, Nathan Edwards.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.