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<div>Interesting post on the NY Times website today about how ICANN's new gtld rules are pricing small and medium sized businesses out of the market entirely. So much for innovation and Internet start-ups. Noncommercial entrants won't stand a chance of getting a new top level domain under ICANN's proposed rules and costs either. Sigh.</div><div><br></div><div>Robin </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 15px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><br></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 15px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><br></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 15px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><br></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 15px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/the-best-internet-addresses-will-cost-a-cool-million/?ref=technology">http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/the-best-internet-addresses-will-cost-a-cool-million/?ref=technology</a></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 15px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#808080" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><br></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 15px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" color="#808080" style="font: 11.0px Arial; color: #808080">July 14, 2009</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 15px; "><font face="Georgia" size="6" style="font: 24.0px Georgia">The Best Internet Addresses Will Cost a Cool .Million</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" color="#808080" style="font: 11.0px Arial; color: #808080">By <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/author/saul-hansell/"><font color="#0e436d" style="color: #0e436d">SAUL HANSELL</font></a></font></div> <br><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 15px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Georgia; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); min-height: 11px; "><br></div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px; line-height: 21.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" color="#333333" style="font: 14.0px Georgia; color: #333333">One of the characteristics of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has been its commitment to create a level playing field between big companies and individuals who use the Internet. Its cumbersome decision-making process is open to input from all sides. And its core role — assigning the domain names used by Web sites — has been quite egalitarian: First come, first served. (<a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/brokering-peace-between-brand-owners-and-domainers/"><font color="#0e436d" style="color: #0e436d"><u>Trademark issues</u></font></a> aside.)</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px; line-height: 21.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" color="#333333" style="font: 14.0px Georgia; color: #333333">That’s all changing with a radical <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/do-we-need-more-top-level-domains/"><font color="#0e436d" style="color: #0e436d"><u>revision</u></font></a> to the way domain names are assigned. Big companies are going to be able to get prime addresses that individuals and small business will not be able to afford.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px; line-height: 21.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" color="#333333" style="font: 14.0px Georgia; color: #333333">Icann is about to let anyone start a top-level domain — the part of an Internet address to the right of the period. It mainly says this plan will let entrepreneurs sell specialty addresses to people and companies interested in certain areas, like .shoes or .movies.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px; line-height: 21.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" color="#333333" style="font: 14.0px Georgia; color: #333333">But there is another use for the new top-level domains: simpler Web addresses for companies. Expect to see the likes of .amazon, .ibm and .pepsi. This will let them offer slightly faster ways to get to their various subsections, books.amazon or servers.ibm. I’m not so sure how much of a benefit to users that is over books.amazon.com, but every character is a chance for an error or confusion, so a simpler name can’t be anything but better.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px; line-height: 21.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" color="#333333" style="font: 14.0px Georgia; color: #333333">What about a company’s home page? This is where things may really get interesting. Right now, Internet conventions require text before and after the period. So you’ll need to go to home.amazon or amazon.amazon to get to the company’s home page. Browsers right now treat text with no periods differently. Sometimes the text is sent to a search engine; some corporate networks use the text to go to internal sites.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px; line-height: 21.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" color="#333333" style="font: 14.0px Georgia; color: #333333">But if top-level domains become widely used by popular Web sites, browser makers may well decide to treat a single word entered in the browser bar as a pointer to that domain’s home page. Suddenly, you will be able to get to Amazon and Pepsi typing a single word, no dots needed.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px; line-height: 21.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" color="#333333" style="font: 14.0px Georgia; color: #333333">What would stop everybody then from rushing to get their own top-level domain? It might be very fine to own .saul, as I missed out buying <a href="http://saul.com/"><font color="#0e436d" style="color: #0e436d"><u>saul.com</u></font></a>. The answer is money. It costs $185,000 simply to apply for a top-level domain. Then there are the legal bills to shepherd your application through Icann. And the organization requires a fair bit of technology to be certified to run a domain.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px; line-height: 21.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" color="#333333" style="font: 14.0px Georgia; color: #333333">All in, it will cost $500,000 to $1 million to set up shop on the Internet after the dot. That means that not only will individuals be shut out of owning top-level domains, but small and mid-sized businesses could also find the price of entry too high.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px; line-height: 21.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" color="#333333" style="font: 14.0px Georgia; color: #333333">So here’s where the two-tier Internet is going to hit home with users. Companies that own top-level domains may well stand out from those that don’t.</font></p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 21px; "><font face="Georgia" size="4" color="#333333" style="font: 14.0px Georgia; color: #333333">Does .citi seem more established than hometownbank.com? Is .gap a bit more fashionable than tiedyetshirts.com?</font></div><br><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div>IP JUSTICE</div><div>Robin Gross, Executive Director</div><div>1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA 94117 USA</div><div>p: +1-415-553-6261 f: +1-415-462-6451</div><div>w: <a href="http://www.ipjustice.org">http://www.ipjustice.org</a> e: <a href="mailto:robin@ipjustice.org">robin@ipjustice.org</a></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><br></body></html>