Internet corporation foiled in plot to take down Internet

To most Netizens, the acronym “TLD” stands for “top-level domain.” But when it comes to ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), “TLD” also apparently stands for “true-life drama.”

Last June, ICANN announced plans to open up the current list of 22 TLDs (.com, .net, .biz, etc) to anyone who wanted to nominate one of their own. Last January, it began accepting applications for new generic TLDs with this announcement on its website:

Tremendous anticipation, planning, and work drove toward 12 January, 2012, the day ICANN began accepting applications for new gTLDs. Whether you’ve applied or not, your next question might be: “It’s after 12 January. What happens next?”

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Yesterday, ICANN had to shut down its gTLD application process because “a possible glitch in the TLD application system software … has allowed a limited number of users to view some other users’ file names and user names in certain scenarios.”

We know what happens next: ICANN’s website accidentally spills data about the folks who are applying for new TLDs. Maybe it needed just a scosh more anticipation, planning, and work, eh?

Getting a new TLD isn’t exactly like applying for a dog license. Want to establish your very own top-level domain? That’ll be $185,000, please — and that’s just to submit an application. It will take another six to nine months before ICANN approves or disapproves it. Got a thumbs-down? Sorry, no refunds.

The folks whose data just got spilled aren’t your average schmoes — they’re major corporations and nation states, many of them probably competing for the same domains. (Barring any other glitches, ICANN plans to announce the names of the applicants at the end of this month.) You have to imagine they’re not entirely happy with ICANN right now.

A wide-open domain system has benefits for non-U.S. companies, in part because it will allow them to use non-Western-language characters in their names. It has benefits for brands like Disney or Coca-Cola, which can essentially own their own little piece of the Internet. I’m kind of partial to .cringe, myself.

It will be an enormous economic boon for copyright attorneys, who will soon be racking up millions of billable hours policing all those new domains for brand squatters, makers of cheap knockoffs, gripe sites, scammers, and the like. And it will provide many rich paydays to come for domain registrars (more on that in a sec).

But it will be confusing as hell for everyone else. Quick, can you name all 22 of the current TLDs? Me, I get to about 10 and start scratching my head. Imagine a world with hundreds of TLDs — not including the more than 200 country-code TLDs, like .uk or .us.

Say you decide to visit the happiest place on earth. Do you go to Disney.com, Disney.info, Disney.biz, Disney.us, Disney.amusementpark, Disney.Mickeymouse, or Disney.Disney?

Let’s say Wal-Mart wins the rights to the .store domain or McDonald’s snags .burgers. I can’t imagine Target or Burger King being very keen about that.

Or say you own a technology consulting firm and hanker for a .tech domain to enhance your street cred. No problem — you’ll just have to pay whatever usurious rates the registrar that has exclusive rights to the .tech domain wants to charge.

My prediction: It’s going to be a wet hot mess. And aside from country- and language-specific domains, most users will simply default to .com, like we already do and hope that the site we landed on is the one we were looking for.

This is hardly the first time ICANN has stuck its foot in it. For years, it dithered over whether to allow an .xxx domain for adult sites. That decision (or lack thereof) went on so long, in fact, that the adult industry became one of the most vocal opponents to .xxx, having invested millions of dollars building up its .com and .net franchises.

As The Register’s Kieren McCarthy points out, ICANN’s domain name dispute process has become synonymous with the phrase “deeply flawed,” in part because it heavily favors the side with the deepest pockets. The information in the Whois database is often completely fictional, and ICANN’s pathetic attempts to police that are a joke.

Then there are the ethics problems. The other major beneficiaries of the new domain boom are registrars, as noted above. And who makes up most of ICANN’s governing board? Yes, that’s right — representatives from major domain registrars. As the Church Lady from “SNL” might once have said, “How convenient.”

The fact that ICANN has shot itself and its well-heeled customers in the feet — yet again — comes as no surprise. The worst is surely still to come.

Have you experienced your own true-life drama at the hands of ICANN? Post your tales of woe below or email me: cringe@infoworld.com.

This article, “Internet corporation foiled in plot to take down Internet,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Field blog, and subscribe to Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter.