Google Applies For Dot-LOL Domain 125
judgecorp writes "Google has applied for the .lol domain in ICANN's sale of generic top level domains (gTLDs). Google also asked for .google, .docs, and .youtube at a cost of $185,000 each, in the round of applications which has finally closed. A glitch in the application system may have leaked some of the applicants' data to other applicants."
the problem is (Score:5, Funny)
Re:the problem is (Score:4, Funny)
So who has the .cats domain?
Re:the problem is (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Too bad they didn't apply for .cheezburger.. (Score:5, Funny)
ICANN.has.cheezburger
FTFY
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No, in the story they will just be hackers.
185k Quid, not dollars (Score:5, Informative)
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All I can say is... (Score:2)
Surely you know...
I hope they don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm one of those people who is sorry to see the erosion of the TLD. It's bad enough that individuals are shut out of the process by the rules and absurd fees. But under the new rules Google has zero right to it. I hope they don't get it.
Re:I hope they don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed the rules/absurd fees associated with these are meant to force the smaller crowd out. the company i work for is small, but we are among the top in our field and i could see a TLD for several processes and standards that we have created and consult on over the years, but at 200k a pop we can't justify even one.
Re:I hope they don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, the TLD system has been broken for a long time. There should probably never have been TLDs without country codes, for one thing. And enforcement on TLDs that were supposed to be reserved for specific purposes was always lousy -- I remember seeing clearly commercial sites with .net TLDs popping up in the mid-90's.
Re:I hope they don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
It may have been broken, but at least it was understandable.
Between url shorteners and (now) vanity domains, who the fuck will really know where a link is taking them?
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Re:I hope they don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
It'll just turn out to be a massive waste of money.
Hell, you can even take your average user and have them look at a website... almost no one takes .biz, .info, .us seriously. .com, .net, and .org is where it's at.
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I'm still wondering where this money is even going. When you consider all the corporations that will have to buy one of these, and all the similar and related TLDs to their name and proudcts this is going to net ICANN literally many billions of dollars in profit yet ICANN is meant to be non-profit. Where is that money going? Is each member of staff at ICANN just going to get billion dollar paychecks or what?
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Maybe I'm uninformed on the matter, but if you ask me, they should drop top level domains altogether. Everyone has a .com. Few other things really "exist": .org + some popular at the moment (cc, ca, what have you). Imagine perhaps a blank global TLD, and make the trailing dot optional. Then make a distributed, global DNS system. Sit and wait till those with extensions fade to obscurity ("translating" them to new TLDs would also be an option). Let the bidding begin. Then after the dust from the auctions sets
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Then after the dust from the auctions sets, make each new domain exponentially more costly to obtain.
So basically what you're suggesting is something close to a pyramid scheme?
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No, x in that f(x) is not a number of globally registered domains, it is the number of domains owned by an individual/company. That is, for every subject, registration of the first domain is cheap. The more *they* buy, the more they pay for the next one. Thus, moderation is advised (and cybersquatting eliminated). Again, just an idea, I don't claim it's bulletproof. For example there may be places on earth where starting a "company" is extremely easy. Also, abuses such as having employees register domains
Great... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Is it really any different than granting full operation of .com to Verisign?
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Just wait for the free .google ot .lol domain rush. Yes it's open to abuse, but it always has been.
Re:Great... (Score:4, Interesting)
They don't own it; they don't even "own" it. Edit /etc/hosts and point "google.docs" whithersoever you wish. ICANN just own a list to which people subscribe. If you don't like their list, don't subscribe to it. They control nothing of importance in that capacity except what you let them control.
Re:Great... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Windows: %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts /etc/hosts (it's just Unix, although /etc is a symlink to /private/etc)
Mac:
iOS: See above, since iOS is OSX on ARM.
Not disagreeing with your premise, but the point is that every OS has the ability to do this. That's even disregarding the ability to run your own DNS server with whatever you want.
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I have windows. What is /etc/hosts?
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
Unfortunately that is also the arcane spell to summon APK -- get away while you still can!
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Re:Great... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Great... (Score:4, Informative)
If lol was used historically on usenet [wikipedia.org], and Google owns Usenet [google.com], then couldn't Google claim ownership of it? Interestingly, AOL tried to trademarke LOL [uspto.gov] in 2003 but never filed a use statement...
Google doesn't own Usenet, they bought Deja News (a Usenet provider). No one can own Usenet, any more than one can own the Internet. It's a decentralized service, and functions almost exactly like the Internet in general, with peers sharing posts between eachother... That's why I can subscribe to a giganews account and my posts still show up in Google's usenet service.
Re:Great... (Score:4, Interesting)
This just goes to show how flawed this system is. When a for profit corporation can "own" a non-trademark general use term as a TLD, it's a clear sign that the system is open to abuse.
Money and lawyers are the traditional tools for dealing with contention. Would it be better if we pushed all DNS disputes through the (US?) trademark system? It would be great if there were a technical solution but that doesn't seem to exist. If we use IP addresses without DNS names it would only make memorable/easy IP ranges the issue of contention (and 42.42.42.42 is already taken.) So, just like email addresses, the naming scheme won't change until we completely replace the system with something new -- and maybe not even then.
A tangent: a co-op style domain system would be interesting. Buy a TLD like "*.commons" to run it. Let anyone in and have a member voting system to resolve disputes (think ugly-but-functional Wikipedia politics). Give the names away free, with the use of a TLD wide SSL cert, or setup self-signing for name holders. A network effect could make it viable, and donations could pay for root servers.
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You could move to namecoin. (Not trolling, I swear.)
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Yeah, but to make namecoin work... you need a co-op run .bit TLD (or someone with fat stacks of cash running it as a benevolent dictator, or whatever); else people have to run fragmented DNSes using a non-official TLD (and hoping nobody buys that TLD from ICANN, or mass confusion), or apply some longer suffix (such as namecoin-suffix.dot-bit.org)
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Namecoin still uses money for registration, it just uses bitcoin currency. See: http://dot-bit.org/Namecoin [dot-bit.org]
To register a name, you must own some namecoins (NMC, the internal cryptocurrency used by the software).
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True, but it's not like bitcoins are expensive. It's like $2 to get a namecoin and you keep it forever, no?
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Uh, Google just applied for it, ICANN still hasn't made a decision, so we have no idea if a corporation "can own a non-trademark general use term as a TLD".
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Is it too late to apply for .tld?
How about .icann?
League of Legends (Score:2, Funny)
Do not evil... (Score:4, Funny)
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http://dont-do-ev.lol/ [dont-do-ev.lol]
So who has applied for (Score:5, Funny)
.WTF and .OMG
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.FAIL
Re:So who has applied for (Score:5, Funny)
.FAIL
ICANN has reserved that one for personal use.
Oh, you... (Score:2)
So they're doing it just for the lulz, errr, lols?
np: Sóley - Smashed Birds (We Sink)
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.docs? (Score:2)
I think Microsoft may have something to say about that. Is there an auction for a domain that two or more parties want? Is there anyway that Apple could bid on (and win) .google?
Re:.docs? (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft should be perfectly happy with their ownership of .crash, .virus, and .bsod.
"No, Mr. Ellison, Google does not run Oracle.LOL (Score:1)
Although some of our engineers may have posted content to it during their 20 percent time. And we don't keep records on everyone who has contributed anonymously to the section on "Larry's Management Style."
BTW the domain is for sale! We'd be happy to sell it to you. The price is 1 billion USD.
Redundant (Score:5, Funny)
Changing their address to google.google is a bit redundant.
Re:Redundant (Score:4, Interesting)
Changing their address to google.google is a bit redundant.
well, yes,.. that would be stupid. But luckily there are other words in the dictionary
search.google
docs.google
shopping.google
mail.google
images.google
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Or just gooogle.
Given the price I think even Google didn't apply for that name. Or any of the other misspellings:
www.gooogle.com
www.gogle.com
At $185000 a pop that's a lot to cover stupid users.
Re:Redundant (Score:5, Informative)
Why not just "google"? Like "uz": http://uz/ [uz]
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Wow, you can actually do this?
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Wow, you can actually do this?
Yep. The root servers point the zone to whichever nameservers are authoritative for that ccTLD, and those nameservers are free to serve up whatever they like, including A records for the uz domain itself.
However, since it is generally expected that nobody does this, you can't expect all clients to do what you want them to. For example, when you type "uz" into Safari's address bar, it doesn't recognize this pattern as an FQDN so it tries a couple of other behaviors - first appending your search domain, the
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Changing their address to google.google is a bit redundant.
But mapping http://google/ [google] to their search engine would make a lot of sense.
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Interestingly, this URL already takes me to Google.
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But search.google, mail.google, news.google and code.google isn't redundant. It's maybe *pointless* when users are used to mail.google.com and news.google.com, especially when they still haven't gotten rid of the redundant `www.` from their main URL
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Obviously, they have the opportunity to clean their url.
http://google/ [google]
This gives them the opportunity to move the query string to the sub domain position, like:
http://docs.google/ [docs.google]
http://adsense.google/ [adsense.google]
http://reader.google/ [reader.google]
With some DNS wild cards, they could even move variables to sub domains.
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Steam has done it before. It is the Valve's version of Verizon math.
I can see it now... (Score:1)
I think someone should apply for .sucks (Score:5, Funny)
Could be a best-selling TLD
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Somebody with money seems to agree:
http://voxpopregistry.com/
Goodbye, useful metadata (Score:4, Interesting)
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DOS batch files don't have their own TLD, but I'm using a Perl one...
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That's a problem with a solution, URIs (and usually, context as well) manage to differentiate perfectly there. Otherwise, COMMAND.COM would be a much bigger problem than AUTOEXEC.BAT.
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How is that different to command.com?
SNL got it right... (Score:1)
SNL Video Reference [www.dula.tv]
Obviously got it wrong (Score:2)
They should have applied for .lulz
Ironically, Google decides the importance of gTLDs (Score:1)
If Google chooses to give a heavy weighting towards sites that use gTLDs, then the sites will become immensely valuable. OTOH, if Google decide that gTLDs are essentially ICANN spam, they will be dead in the water.
Given that Google has only applied for four, when they could have budgeted for hundreds or even thousands, my guess is that .com will continue to be the top dog for the foreseeable future.
my dns server will not look up these new TLDs (Score:1)
I have already worked out the configs so that these silly TLDs cannot be used on my network.
Just .lol? (Score:2)
Shouldn't they also ask for .ioi, .101 and .l0l? :) .ioi for "legitimate" reasons and then offering .lol domain owners to buy the same ones, or suffer from links to ".IOI" :\
While having a whole TLD dedicated to trolling Google seems unlikely, I can see someone getting
.co.ck!!! (Score:2)
I know, €250 is a lot to pay for a regular domain name but really, if you can get a Cook Islands domain with
That's nice. (Score:2)
ICANN HAZ ROOTZONE PLZ? (Score:2)
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Chrome search queries as frontend to Google TLD (Score:3)
I don't know about you but I have seriously gotten used to asking questions / searching google by just typing into the location bar (on Mac Chrome and on Android).
Google could semantically reorganize the words in all queries and put them into the .google name space that would be cool.
So popular searches like "dyi projects for home" (which I discovered by just typing the words in and seeing autocomplete suggestions) might be mapped by google into:
http://results.home.dyi.projects.google/ [dyi.projects.google]
and then google could automatically create:
http://community.home.dyi.projects.google/livechat/channelnumber [dyi.projects.google]
http://market.home.dyi.projects.google/yourbrandname [dyi.projects.google]
http://users.dyi.projects.google/yourgoogleaccountname [dyi.projects.google]
http://projects.google/yoursourceforgeprojectname [projects.google]
http://videos.home.dyi.projects.google/ [dyi.projects.google] -> maps to youtube
etc.
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Great ideas though.