Rival environmental groups are lining up supporters to try to take control of a new net domain aimed at green groups. At least two consortiums are known to be preparing bids to control .eco.In March this year, former US vice president Al Gore backed a bid by the California group Dot Eco to operate the proposed "top level domain" (TLD). But now a Canadian environmental group known as Big Room has launched a competing bid to manage the TLD, which is similar to .com or .uk.
Both firms plan to apply to Icann - the regulatory body that oversees domain names - for the creation of .eco early in 2010.
Think of all the money wasted on .eco that could be donated to better causes. Oh well.
Useless exercise unless you are ICANN / the one controlling the new TLD (much to be earned from those having to protect a trademark) or are into cybersquatting.
All the rest of us: just ignore it, it's just another .info, .travel, .biz, .tel, .mobi or whatnot that have already failed to make any difference at all.
Al Gore -Mr "Internet is tubes"- backing this is lacking to impress to say the least. The dude doesn't know the fist thing about the Internet, so why would his voice be important in creating yet another utterly useless TLD.
useless name IMO.I agree.
All the rest of us: just ignore it, it's just another .info, .travel, .biz, .tel, .mobi or whatnot that have already failed to make any difference at all.I wouldnt put .tel in the same category.
Al Gore -Mr "Internet is tubes"- backing this is lacking to impress to say the least.
Gore wasn't the one who came up with this silly tube reference.
"Series of tubes" is an analogy used by former United States Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) to describe the Internet in the context of network neutrality.
It would have been much easier if [...] no other extension other than .com existed.
I wouldn't put .tel in the same category.
and the best-selling author, Umberto Eco
I'm not going to stand in line for this landgrab
Why not just focus on building a good, quality site on a .org or the 50 other extensions we already have?
Because spitting out new extensions is a cash cow and it means new real estate out of thin air if you will. It is also the precursor to the "look at how broken the internet is, we need to reset it to do it right" agendas. Of course I haven't read the official reasoning for the .eco, but I don't really care to since it ads no value to anything I'm doing.
What's wrong with having even more choice? Why can't we have thousands of TLD?
It's risky to advertise anything except one of the better-known TLDs, like .com. Can you imagine three different ads for example.gsk, example.dfb and example.rgg - Most people wouldn't remember any of them, no mater how memorable the name "example" might be.
Getting an appropriate domain name for your site shouldn't be a matter of speculation and capital, but a matter of preferences and choice.
What made you visit webmasterworld.com instead of webmasterworld.ilovemycat? Most people type .com is my point, but cats are cute.
As for discovering this site, I must have typed "webmaster forum" in Google, looking for a forum for web professionals. Any TLD would have probably done it. Well, except .biz, because spammers ruined it, as they do with anything they touch. but people don't seem to have problems with slashdot.org, or even that old weird one, del.icio.us (although I must admit they recently acquired delicious.com)
The only "word-like" ones I can think of are artd.eco and gr.eco
Well, there is josecans.eco (baseball player), bandedge.co and flyingg.eco (lizards), delgr.eco (furniture company), and pach.eco (california town).
After that, well...
"Ours is to sell domain names to raise funds for organisations who can effect change." (...) "We could be one of the biggest contributors to environmental causes anywhere in the world," said Mr Childers.
Perhaps if he toned down the hyperbole just a tad, I might take him more seriously. ;)
to raise funds for organisations
Then get a .org...! :-)
I just don't understand why some people are actively against the creation of new ones and blame corporate greed or ...
The other to win from this: squatters who then will try to sell the stuff to others.
If you have a trademark to protect
Is it an obligation? As in, legally you have to buy them or else, you could lose the trademark in court for not protecting it?
Otherwise, I'd say no one is forced to own all possible TLD variations of their domain name, get the .org, .net, at most, don't worry about the others. As more TLDs are created, it would be foolish to chase them all and this mentality may soon be relegated to old 2000 marketing books.
It reminds me of the people in the 90s who were building dozens of duplicate web sites all under a slightly different keywords related to their business. Nobody does that anymore.
s it an obligation? As in, legally you have to buy them or else, you could lose the trademark in court for not protecting it?
Exactly! Failure to protect the trademark produces dilution of the mark. When enough dilution accumulates the trademark is lost in legal battle. Some famous trademarks lost: asprin, kleenex, scotch tape...
Trademarks are forever (as long as registrations are filed timely and properly). Copyrights are finite (though these days its near a hundred years).
