.name-calling

Internet top-level domains or TLDs are rapidly expanding. A few years ago, users and companies desiring an Internet address could only choose among the .com, .net and .org domains. These days, however, a plethora of new TLDs is ushering a new age of online domain ownership.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN (www.icann.org) is the non-profit corporation which decides on which TLDs to release. ICANN was formed to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment and domain name system management. The recently released TLDs were selected from over a total of 18 TLDs.

One of the recently announced TLDs is .name geared for users who want to have their own family names as online domains. There are also .biz, which is specifically focused on business domains; .info for information-focused websites; .museum for museums and culturally inclined sites; .coop for cooperatives; .aero for airlines; and .pro for lawyers, accountants, doctors and other accredited professionals. Giving certain sectors their own top level domains helps organize the Internet’s already chaotic structure, especially now that the .com domain is heavily saturated and overused, making it very difficult to find any name with a .com attached to it.

The big news is the .name domain which gives individuals or families a means to secure their own proprietary domains based on their family names. Juan de la Cruz, for example, could get the www.delacruz.name and his e-mail address could be [email protected].

Equal opportunity

The new .name domain gives everyone an equal opportunity online to acquire their own domains. This makes the World Wide Web a virtual registry where one and all can go ahead and pitch their family’s flag and claim their "online real estate" but on a first-come, first-served basis.

While the new TLDs further establish the World Wide Web as a new frontier of online property, there is a danger that they could attract undesirable practices.

Since the start of the dot-com era, the race to secure domain names, especially the .com TLD has taken on ridiculous extremes. The .com domain was so definitive and necessary that a new sub-species of online prospectors thrived by spending fortunes buying up domains at the expense of their "proper" owners.

A lot of crazy stories pertaining to .com domain names being bought and later sold for outrageous sums of money punctuated the dot-com era. Then there are the sordid stories of individuals buying up famous domain names and populating the pages with pornography and scandalous content. One such example is www.whitehouse.com which is a porn site which surprises many visitors who really want to go to www.whitehouse.gov to get information on the United States government. This misrepresentation could also very well happen to the new domains, especially the .name domain.

It is unlikely, however, that too many people will go out of their way to purchase other people’s domain names but who knows, in cyberspace, anything is possible.

Ideal for families

Many may wonder why anyone would want to get a domain for his family name. The .name domain is ideal for families or individuals who are separated across continents; they can secure a domain and build a basic website which can be used to post a directory of relatives, photos of recent family gatherings and even short videos in MPEG format to share with relatives in other countries.

More enterprising individuals such as politicians and celebrities can secure their own domain (provided the .com is already taken) and use this Web address to promote themselves, their work and even their schedules of appearances. Regular Joes and Janes can do the same for purposes of putting their resumés online and devoting space to their hobbies and interests. Whatever the reason, the .name domain is certain to become a popular domain that scores of Netizens will consider acquiring in the coming months.

As the world recovers slowly from the dot-com gloom, it is evident that there are a lot of reasons for renewed excitement on the Internet. The new TLDs are just one of them.