French domain registrar Gandi.net asked 1,000 consumers about
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)'s plan
to lift restrictions on generic top level domains (gTLDs). It plans
to allow almost any term to form a domain.
The Gandi survey found that 65% of the people it interviewed
thought the move would create a jumble of pointless domain names,
while 57% thought it would be confusing. It found that 46% of those
people thought it would make the internet harder to navigate, while
41% thought it would send it out of control.
The 100 UK businesses surveyed were more positive about the
move, with 75% welcoming the move.
The study found that consumers had concerns about the
trustworthiness of sites located at new domains. Many more found
long-established domains such as .uk or .com more worthy of their
trust than recent additions such as .biz or proposed domains such
as .eco.
Consumers were not even hugely enthusiastic about the prospect
of more personalised domains. Just 15% think that a domain ending
in .theirprofession, for example, would be appealing.
The report outlined the kind of confusions that the change could
create.
"Consumers will be unable to distinguish which is the valid
website. Do they visit microsoft.com/sales or sales.microsoft? If
they are searching for the London Symphony Orchestra online, do
they choose lso.com, lso.music or lso.london?" it said.
Businesses also showed some reluctance to accept the change. The
report talked to Tracy Abraham, the head of new media marketing and
communications at TV station Channel 4.
"It is hard enough trying to get people to remember the bit that
comes before the dot, let alone after it,", she said, explaining
that on youth channel More4 the company does not use URLs, but just
asks viewers to 'search for More4'.
"Most of our traffic comes from Google, and it is better for
consumers if they come straight to the page they are interested in,
rather than having to trawl through the website. It is arrogant for
us to assume that people will remember a URL," she said.
The plan has prompted fears about increased cybersquatting and
trade mark defence costs for businesses. Though ICANN's fee for
setting up a domain is $185,000, experts have said that the set up
costs could reach $2 million.
The costs will make it unlikely that companies will have to
fight top level domain squatters. According to trade mark law
experts, though, the proposal could cause companies headaches
because they will have to monitor many more gTLDs for sub-domains
that infringe their rights.
Gandi's survey found that half of the businesses it talked to
register their website with all the largest domain name extensions
and 41% with all the available domain extensions to prevent
cybersquatting.
"60% of businesses with less than 10 staff register their domain
against the largest top-level domains, but fewer (36%) can afford
to register against all available domains," the report said. "Once
a potentially limitless number of extensions become available, it
will be impossible, or at least very expensive, for companies to
get [their name at all the domains]."
ICANN recently announced that it would take longer than it
previously thought to establish the new domains. Applications will
now not be taken for the domains until early in 2010 it said last
month.
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