You are all already familiar with the concept of a top-level domain, or TLD. It's the extension at the end of a web address, such as .com, .net, .org or .biz, to name a few. Now,
ICANN, the organization that oversees these domains and allows or disallows new ones, has for the first time approved and will roll out TLDs in other languages. I can't write them out since they are in languages such as Arabic, Russian, and Chinese, so I will instead point you to
this article at the BBC which does a very good job of explaining it.
Other large companies also applied for new TLDs, both Amazon and Google want .music of course, but Google also applied for the mysterious and enigmatic .boo. I'm intrigued...
Now, you may wonder why ICANN has the authority to do this, who made them boss? That's a valid question, and I will fill you in when we talk about in class!
Very interesting. So, if they create the new domain names in the other languages, will use of the domains be limited to those countries? i didn't realize there was an organization that oversees domains on the internet.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, all domains are necessarily available all over the world. Specific sites are controllable by their administrators but domains have no limits; that's why we can visit sites whose address ends in .au (Australia) or .uk (United Kingdom) or .jp (Japan), to name a few.
DeleteAdditionally, as surprising as it may sound, everything that deals with he operation and infrastructure of the web is overseen by an associated governing organization - there are many of them. It would be chaos otherwise, as you can imagine. We'll talk about them, why they exist, and who is involved during our discussion on networking.
Wouldn't changing popular sites' TLD's just confuse everyone? I couldn't imagine getting used to typing in amazon.music or google.boo instead of the .com TLD I'm used to. The article says Google has made 101 requests to change its TLD. I don't get it, why?
ReplyDeleteI am surprised they did not do this earlier. The internet is boundless just as actual space but it costs less and has faster results. I am interested to type in www.youtube.youtube or just www.youtube. I wonder what the effect will be on the user. I wonder how the user will process the new input. Whatever the case, we will hear the output.
ReplyDeleteOf course I knew that some organization was controlling which domains would be accepted or declined, but I wonder what their criteria is, what makes one domain better than the other? In addition, what is the purpose of the extension at the end of the web address and why do they need to expand? So many question.
ReplyDelete