New Frontiers when Rules on Internet Domains are relaxed Next Year

[liowkc]

Get ready for the most dramatic change when the liberation of domain names take place next year. The relaxation will result in many branding opportunities for companies like eBay.

[hwang]

I don't understand what you mean over there. Liberalization in terms of domain names?? U mean anybody can register for any name provided it is available related to any particular famous brand??

[liowkc]

The current strict snytax requirement on domain names will be relaxed. For example, eBay could end with Ebay in its domain name rather than .com.

[neena]

Originally Posted by liowkc

The current strict snytax requirement on domain names will be relaxed. For example, eBay could end with Ebay in its domain name rather than .com.

Not only would the .com culture change but people will be able to register their domain names in their own languages, rather than simply english. There has been a raging discussion over English speaking countries' monopoly on the internet and now thats about to change very quickly with IDN. IDN stands for International Domain Names which lets a user choose different characters other than a-z. Now you can decide on the characters of your choice and register your domain names with IDN.

To see an example type this into your browser
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

[liowkc]

Thanks Neena for your further elaboration. Domain names in languages otherr than English will probably benefit Chinese the most in view of the big Chinese commercial market.

[neena]

I really wonder how will one search for an unfamiliar site address now ? Earlier atleast you could google a name and get the website address, but now you'd have to be an expert in all the languages to know which one you're really after. It sounds like a crazy merry go round thing to me. Earlier there were legal cases against name squatters, now you'll have fights for extention names. Imagine having a domain name such as [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] or even better, the cos registering the same domain name in different characters. So you'll have [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] or [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] , sounds pretty crazy doesn't it!

[hwang]

Now that's what I call "explanation" straight to the point and easy to understand
Ok. Now I get it and I think having this relaxation on the rules would be great. Imagine the possibilities and the outcome.

Thanks neena. ++reps for that.

Originally Posted by neena

Not only would the .com culture change but people will be able to register their domain names in their own languages, rather than simply english. There has been a raging discussion over English speaking countries' monopoly on the internet and now thats about to change very quickly with IDN. IDN stands for International Domain Names which lets a user choose different characters other than a-z. Now you can decide on the characters of your choice and register your domain names with IDN.

To see an example type this into your browser
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

[neena]

Thanks again for your kind words hwang. Lol..nice to know you're looking forward to it, somehow I'm not too happy with the change. Maybe its coz I'm partial to english or because I don't understand Chinese, German or Arabic.

[liowkc]

For me I think the relaxation is great - it will lead to more democratisation of the internet and the possibly the end of hegemony of English ovelord over the internet.

[hwang]

Well, it depends. Each individual has their own preferences so that's why I got excited about it. LoL but there's always a chance for us to use the languages tools to interpret the site content. I often came across German sites when searching for engineering tools so I don't mind interpret it for my own convenience.

Originally Posted by neena

Thanks again for your kind words hwang. Lol..nice to know you're looking forward to it, somehow I'm not too happy with the change. Maybe its coz I'm partial to english or because I don't understand Chinese, German or Arabic.

[life31]

Oh my God! Seems like they are up to mess up everything online. But then thinking over it doesnot take to to any conclusion.


Personally I feel that this should not happen, cos if you see the tld's act as a set of rules which are to be followed during domain registration. Now think how it would be if there arent any rules in existance.

Moreever if that is going to happn then even the trademarking should be or will be needed to be removed. Cos anyone can get off and register any domains like the ones mentioned above ebay.ebay ect.

Again if the trademarking is still followed and no one goes forward and registers such domains for the fear of top companies taking some legal actions, even then there would be a lots and lots of domain hacks available like e.bay eb.ay and many such stuff.

Thats really going to mess up with everything.

[hwang]

Hmmm....I think the trademarking rules still remains. Maybe what was mentioned was new set of characters introduced especially to accommodate foreign languages. That was my interpretation based on neena's explaination. Or it that exactly what it means in the first place???

[life31]

Yes they do remain. I just made an assumption of what would happen if that comes true.

Even I am totally confused at the moment

@neena -- is this a example of it ??? [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
Nope! I dont think. - and numbers were always allowed. Its only some extraordinary use of nos and - in that domain
:-0 loL who the hell desided to register that now

[hwang]

Yeah, it totally has no meaning. But anyway, let's wait for someone to confirm on that. I'm also confused now after you raised up the trademarking issue here.
Initially I thought it was just about inserting foreign characters apart from the conventional ones which we are currently using.

[neena]

The trademarks still stay hwang, but if apple.com becomes appl.de in German, the company can’t claim infringement rights. So there are going to be issues for sure as there are squatters who’ve probably registered everything that they could have by now.

As for the [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] ,its just a bootstring for punycode life31.
Punycode is a way to represent international domain names with the limited character set ('a'-'z', '0'-'9') supported by the domain name system or ASCII as we know it. It converts all the non ASCII to ASCII characters.
For example "münich" would be encoded as "mnich-kva".An IDN takes the punycode encoding, and adds a 'xn--' in front of it. So "münich.com" would become "xn--mnich-kva.com".
I just typed Neena in the punycode converter and it threw up xn--x1b9ba9g for my name. The sample you see too has numbers because some of the Chinese characters are understood that way by the punycode. You can try the converter here [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Hope this information has been useful as before, but as I said its a crazy world out there and there are going to major issues cropping up when they open it to public.

[liowkc]

Things will definitely get messy and real interesting when different business entities fight for the same name or format.

Wonders how much it would cost to register a new domain with the new regime.

[Llamalord]

Its gonna cost a bomb to make your own, but in the end you could get something like:


[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Not the best but people would then buy all the domains linked to cheese (cheeder etc) meaning you could actually make alot of money... would cost alot but hell would be fun

[life31]

Originally Posted by neena

The trademarks still stay hwang, but if apple.com becomes appl.de in German, the company can’t claim infringement rights. So there are going to be issues for sure as there are squatters who’ve probably registered everything that they could have by now.

As for the [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] ,its just a bootstring for punycode life31.
Punycode is a way to represent international domain names with the limited character set ('a'-'z', '0'-'9') supported by the domain name system or ASCII as we know it. It converts all the non ASCII to ASCII characters.
For example "münich" would be encoded as "mnich-kva".An IDN takes the punycode encoding, and adds a 'xn--' in front of it. So "münich.com" would become "xn--mnich-kva.com".
I just typed Neena in the punycode converter and it threw up xn--x1b9ba9g for my name. The sample you see too has numbers because some of the Chinese characters are understood that way by the punycode. You can try the converter here [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Hope this information has been useful as before, but as I said its a crazy world out there and there are going to major issues cropping up when they open it to public.

Thanks for the specifications neena.

Rep+
Nope! I did not have any idea about that! Something really new and intresting for me! But then it did really help me. Punycode

[neena]

I'm glad that my information helped you life31, i've been reading up a lot on it as its going to create a mini revolution online.I also want to thank you and Hwang for giving me REP+. However it doesn't reflect against my name, why's that ?

[life31]

Dont know why it does not rflect against your name??? But then I think you should probably receive a mail or notification saying that someone has left you a rep???