Rolf Larsen, founder and CEO of dot GLOBAL, wrote an article on “Innovation Insights” of Wired.com. Some people will not like what I have to say about the article, including Rolf.
These kind of articles are misleading at best and are doing a disservice to the domain name industry. Here is why.
The article is named “What Have We Learned From .Com ? Could New gTLDs Help Make the Internet More Resilient?”.
Apparently we have learned nothing because .com is not mentioned anywhere in the article. Anyway, I assume that he wanted a catchy title so that is not so important. But…
Here is what Rolf said and a few comments I had:
“Phishing, malware, DNS highjacking .. almost all of us will have suffered from at least one of these abuses of the internet at some time or another, but with the new generic top-level domains(gTLDs), can we now build a unique, trusted internet space?”
NO! I am sorry but phishing, malware etc do not exist because of .com, they are present in all gTLDs and ccTLDs, and will be present in New gTLDs too. Maybe we can but introducing 1400 New gTLDs ain’t gonna do it.
“Take phishing, for example. Research has found that 45 percent of bank customers who are redirected to a phishing site divulge their details.”
Do you know how phishing works? Most emails that arrive at unsuspecting users have links that appear as “*****bank.com” of “godaddy.com” but when the link is clicked users are redirected to obscure urls. How is this going to be fixed by New gTLDs?
“In light of this criminality why wouldn’t banks want to use the new gTLD programme to build a unique and trusted Internet space for themselves? In the .bank gTLD all registrations would be fully restricted to certified banking institutions only. As a result both the bank and its customers would have greater security.We can already see this form of control with the new .xxx registry, which launched the niche Search.xxx engine which only queries .xxx domains.”
So if users see *****bank.bank instead of *****bank.com will be more cautious and will not enter their details on the obscure url they have landed? But they are not going to be on *****bank.bank anyway! And what banking institution will use and trust .bank instead of their own domain or brand gTLD?
And comparing .bank and secure transactions with .xxx is kinda funny: “Please, I need my porn delivered to me securely.”
“Amazon recently paid US$4.6m for .buy, .tech went for US$6.7m – and whilst the principle reason will be the unbeatable marketing value of such specific sites, the ability to control and contain those gTLDs, building a safer and more secure user experience, will also have been a factor.”
Hmmm, not a factor. Amazon just wanted the marketing value and wanted to be as close as it can be to a monopoly.
“The future is bound to contain yet-undreamt-of innovations and applications, we know the internet will get even busier with more gTLDs introduced.”
At last we agree on something.
“Right now the systems we have in place, alongside other new measures such as a simplified trademark infringement resolution system and the opportunity for trademark holders to advance register before a TLD opens up for the general public, are all steps towards maintaining balance and order on the internet as the new gTLDs roll out.”
UDRP was there and continues to exist even after URS was introduced as they serve a different purpose. And sunrise periods exist since at least 2001. Nothing new here.
Some people will say that I complain too much. But such articles have no purpose. Insiders already know these stuff (including what is false) and the outsiders that will read them will get a false sense of security when they see a “*****.bank” domain name link on their email when in fact a .tk domains will be hidden. An article promoting .global would have been a lot better. Rant off. Let the games begin.
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“These kind of articles are misleading at best and are doing a disservice to the domain name industry.”
Kosta, you summed it up perfectly 🙂
IMHO .global, with less than 4k registrations, is one of the (useless, as is “global” on the right of the dot) extensions that won’t exist anymore in let’s say 5 years from now … sorry Jeanette …
I mean “with less than 4k registrations so far”, typo, sorry.
Say NO to drugs!
People, Bloggers and specially so called CEO’s shouldn’t write under the influence.
AM radios…. Dot Com is Dead…. Dot O O O…. Dot W X Y Z….
Well said. Larsen’s so completely off base I don’t even know where to start.