A complete overhaul of the way in which people navigate the internet has been given the go-ahead in Paris.
The net’s regulator, Icann, voted unanimously to relax the strict rules on so-called “top-level” domain names, such as .com or .uk.
The decision means that companies could turn brands into web addresses, while individuals could use their names.
I can think of a few consequences. First, companies like del.icio.us will be pounding their fists for having wasted all that energy on being clever. Second, Tuvalu will be piqued. Third - and this is only speculation - I’m guessing the decision was made to ensure we no longer have to suffer through ugly web 2.0 names (who in their right mind will call themselves Twitku or digisynd when we’re no longer dependent on .com). Finally: who’s ready to go phishing?
An important purpose of domain names is to provide easily recognizable and memorizable names to numerically addressed Internet resources. This abstraction allows any resource (e.g., website) to be moved to a different physical location in the address topology of the network, globally or locally in an intranet. Such a move usually requires changing the IP address of a resource and the corresponding translation of this IP address to and from its domain name.thanks for this….
My first experiences online came before the web, and before most of the modern “nettiquette” was written. It was the days of ultra nerdy folks (like me), librarians, and academic PHD types in lab coats.
When people were not doing serious science type stuff there was a lot of socializing going on. There were hippy hangouts like “The Well”, where big brains were going to change the world, and hacker communities who were going to change the world in a different way. I was a teenager who didn’t fit into either class,exam 70-271 I just wanted to chat about science fiction and download demo programs. When I discovered the internet I did the same things, and again when I discovered the World Wide Web.
Back then most people used a nickname when interacting online. I went through a few in the BBS years, and in my early dabbling in Usenet Newsgroups. I made my best online friends back then in the Red Dwarf newsgroup, and by that time I had abandoned using cool-sounding nicknames and just used “chrisg” or my full name. One friend who stands out in my mind from then is still a friend now over 15 years later, even though we interact now via Twitter. I only knew him by his nickname for over a year. In fact I think we might have met in person before discovering his actual name.
In all that time I stupidly didn’t really take any care over my online privacy. My online friends were much more cautious, but just because they used fake names does not mean they were faking anything else.