Submitted via IRC for takyon
The curious tale of ICANN, Verisign, claims of subterfuge, and the $135m .Web dot-word
An ugly struggle over the .Web top-level domain may soon spill into public view again, after one of the companies vying for control of the dot-word demanded an independent review of DNS overlord ICANN's handling of the saga.
More than two years ago, the internet infrastructure industry was agape when an unknown company paid $135m for the rights to sell .web internet addresses: the sum paid was three times the previous record paid for a new dot-word, and seven times the average auction price for a top-level domain.
All that money went directly into the coffers of ICANN, a financial sum that was more than double its annual budget. That was unusual since the vast majority of previous similar dot-word auctions had been decided in private between the bidders themselves with the proceeds split among them.
It soon emerged that the unknown winner – a company called Nu Dot Co – had been secretly funded by the owner of the dot-com registry, Verisign. But before that information emerged, many in the industry were astonished when Nu Dot Co refused to agree to a private auction and insisted all the money go to ICANN.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @03:52PM (2 children)
replace these turds with an algorithm.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @03:58PM (1 child)
I’m not a doctor but I’ve been seen and examined by quite a few of them, both male and female.
Long long ago I realized it was just a lot easier, simpler, and less embarrassing to just be naked during the exam. No pulling up gowns, no pulling down undershorts. They’re going to look at and touch everything anyway. Might as well just make it easy.
From my experience, doctors have seen and handled so many penises that it’s just another part of the job. It’s about as sexual to them as looking in your ear.
That said, I’ve had two experiences that struck me as being a bit odd. Both of the doctors mentioned below had been out of med school for many years — examining and handling penises was nothing new to either one of them. Any novelty that may have existed during med school or even within the first year or two was in the distant past.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @05:57PM
Dr. Demento and Dr. Kildare.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @05:18PM
So the SOP was to auction worldly public assets in private, hush hush, with proceeds going into private hands. Wow!
Now a company bought this public asset and insists the proceeds should go to the multi-stakeholder semi private entity. This sounds like an improvement to me, what's the catch??
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday December 11 2018, @05:55PM (4 children)
That means it's far more expensive for _everybody_ to defend the domains they've got. Consider realdonaldtrump.xxx.
HOWEVER!
It's also pulled the rug out from under the "Domaining"... uh... "industry", with the result that there are all manner of tasty domains for me to register for ten solid years then redirect to one of my existing sites.
Just now I redirected soggymike.com [soggymike.com] to my Twitter page.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday December 11 2018, @05:56PM (2 children)
Don't Say I Never Did Nothin' Fer Ya.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @09:30PM (1 child)
Thinking of getting it, using deep fakes, and creating submissive gay bondage porn between Trump and Putin :)
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday December 12 2018, @11:58AM
So as to demonstrate to your VCs that you're already... uh... "penetrating" the market.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @05:58PM
Eww. Just Eww.
At least it's not soggymike.xxx or moistmike
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @06:29PM (6 children)
N/T
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @06:51PM (3 children)
Just kill me, wtf is this shit?
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 11 2018, @09:09PM (2 children)
Where have you been, under a rock for the last several years? This is not new news.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_top-level_domain#New_top-level_domains [wikipedia.org]
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @09:25PM (1 child)
I know about the new TLDs, I didn't know 'dot-word' was being used to mean 'TLD'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @09:37PM
dot-words are a subclass of TLDs. Specifically, they refer to the latest batch of gTLDs issued by ICANN. This is to differentiate them from the other categories of gTLD, as the ones at the bidding process were supposed to be commonly used words, phrases, or abbreviations in an ISO recognized language.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @09:49PM (1 child)
I replied elsewhere, but it may not be visible:
dot-words are a subclass of TLDs. Specifically, they refer to the latest batch of gTLDs issued by ICANN. This is to differentiate them from the other categories of gTLD, as the ones at the bidding process were supposed to be commonly used words, phrases, or abbreviations in an ISO recognized language.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @09:57PM
Thanks for correcting my incorrect assumption.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @07:48PM
til: "dot word" hotness is the new tld.
nb: (shakes fist in air) you kids get off my internets.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday December 12 2018, @01:00AM
Obama, very stupidly, wanted to give away our Internet to foreigners. To Russia, to China, to Iran, to Syria -- Animal Assad -- to Canada -- Justin with the Bong. To so many countries that, I won't call them enemies. They're competitors -- very tough competitors. And so many of them say, "oh, death to U. S. A.!" They're not nice people. Just one more way Obama-Clinton sold out the citizens of this Magnificent Country. No more!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @03:12AM (2 children)
When there were only a few TLDs, it made sense to register them all to yourself so you could protect your website and brand.
Thus, the customer was effectively held up at gunpoint by the registrars and paid protection money in the form of redundant domain name registrations : one per TLD.
But now there are so many, it seems too expensive and not worth the hassle. Who is going to think a legitimate website is registered under .web anyway? I would consider these new TLDs to be ghettos where scammy websites would register. Probably trying to pass themselves off as the real website which is on .com or .org (or .co.uk if it's British).
Who even wants these crappy new TLDs? Has registrar greed exceed expected returns from customers?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @05:27AM (1 child)
They also hit people heavily with the "build a brand" or "differentiate yourself" or "inspire confidence."
One of my friends fell for those. He is a partner in an accounting firm, name changed to protect the innocent "Miller & Smith Accountants." They paid over $100 for MillerAndSmith.Accountants and his first reaction when someone asked for his website and he told them was, "No really. What is your website?" Took them a few months of that reaction to finally get MillerAndSmithAccountants.com domain. Now they get to pay for both in perpetuity to prevent squatters.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday December 12 2018, @09:45AM
I'd be surprised if there isn't eventually a ".www" TLD.
Personally, I have 4 .orgs (me + my g/f's personal sites, a shared personal site, one hobby-related domain) and 2 matching ones under relevant ccTLDs for our business (which operates primarily in 2 countries, natch) (not coincidentally the business ones the same 2LD as the shared personal site, which was named first). Never going to touch any of the .modern .crap. ".biz"? .wtf, wasn't that what ".com" was defined to be?!!?!
You youngsters, please lapse your registration from my .lawn!
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