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Re: [Ietf] New .mobi, .xxx, ... TLDs?

2004-04-27 22:45:39
Thus spake "Dean Anderson" <dean(_at_)av8(_dot_)com>
These are not proposals to put URI method functionality into domain names,
but to qualify general business types, such as telephone companies, and
mobile phone companies.  This is no different from using .museum for
museums and .aero to represent aerospace companies.

.aero was a waste of time, as the number of "aerospace" companies is so
small that most users won't even realize it's a valid TLD.  Ditto for
"telephone" and "mobile" company TLDs.  These are all far too specialized
for the cost of their introduction and use to be outweighed by any benefits
to the community as a whole.

Now, a single gTLD which would contain SLDs for particular industries might
be a worthwhile plan, but adding tens of thousands of gTLDs, one for each
industry niche, is plainly not scalable.

So what is the _technical_ problem with having .tel and .mobi TLDs?

More importantly, in light of the human problems with that scheme in
general, what is the technical benefit of having them?  It won't reduce the
overcrowding in .com and .net, which IMHO is the only valid reason for
adding new gTLDs.

Either foo://tel.verizon.com or foo://www.verizon.com/tel is far more
expressive semantically than foo://www.verizon.tel.  The proposal _loses_
information expressed in the hierarchy: how is a user to know foo.tel,
foo.net, and foo.org are all the same company, and foo.com, foo.mobi and
foo.aero are a second company with no relation to the first?

A technical problem, for example, would be similar to the problem with
edu.com, which if you recall, was created back in about 1994 or so.
...
I see no such problems with creating .tel and .mobi TLDs.

Of course there is; you risk collisions like tel.com, mobi.com, com.tel,
mobi.tel, tel.mobi, etc.  With a small, fixed number of TLDs the problem is
manageable because most operators will naturally avoid registering such
SLDs; each new TLD makes this increasingly more difficult.

It is not the case that URI methods can't share names with TLDs.  It would
be fine to have a URI method of, say museum: if you could attach some
sensible meaning to such a method.

True, there's no technical conflict, but one must consider the consequences
in light of the humans using them.  Imagine a world with a "www" or "com"
method, or a "http" TLD -- user error would increase exponentially.  Users
cannot be expected to know why com://yahoo.http has no relation to
http://yahoo.com, and we should not put them in the position of needing to
unless there is no alternative.

I don't think you understand the proposal for the TLDs.  .mobi is not for
mobile _clients_. Its for mobile _Companies_

Equally bad, just for different reasons...

.tel and .mobi are exceptionally bad in combination since the two would end
up with nearly the same contents, given how the markets are so closely
related.

S

Stephen Sprunk        "Stupid people surround themselves with smart
CCIE #3723           people.  Smart people surround themselves with
K5SSS         smart people who disagree with them."  --Aaron Sorkin


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