Re: [ICANN-EU] FW: Domain Name Survey for At Large Member Nominees

[Marc Schneiders <marc@venster.nl>]

On 16 Aug 2000, Lutz Donnerhacke wrote:

> * Marc Schneiders wrote:
> >On Wed, 16 Aug 2000, Hans Peter Dittler wrote:
> >> Speculation and Selling of names became possible because the DNS is
> >> misused as a search tool. I hoped that can be corrected technically by
> >> better search-engines, but until now these hopes have not come to a
> >> useful stage. We have to live with this environment and let the market
> >> decide. If single misuse goes too far we should use existing local laws
> >> to enforce rights of names and trademarks.
> >
> >Sorry, I think you missed the point here completely.
> 
> No.

In what follows you make clear you did.

> >Certain names are in great demand not because people just type them in in
> >their browser. That may be true of a very very tiny number. Names are
> >great because they can be remembered. An easy name sells more easily. Or
> >to put it differently: An easy name needs less marketing, less
> >advertising. That saves money. That is why they pay for a good name. And
> >there is nothing wrong with that, I think.
> 
> You are right, but you misused the tool. It's not correct to support further
> misuse and cry for more tools known to be abused in the same way.

Misuse? DNS is there because humans can better remember names/words than
numbers. What I described is some aspects of the use of DNS in that
way. No more, no less. I was precisely pointing out it was not about DNS
as a search system... 

> >I have registered some short, common Dutch words. They don't get many hits
> >just for being short and catchy.
> 
> That's solely you problem. Will you pay for a protocol number easier to
> remember? Will you pay for a similar IP number (like 193.0.0.193 or
> 47.11.47.11 or 12.34.56.78)?

I did not mention this as a problem. It is not a problem. It was an
example.

> If you try to misuse a tool, you might be successful in the short term but
> the whole system will fail in the long way. That's it.

Again: What nisuse are you chatting about?

> I'm want to usability in the long way.

Yes, what has that got to do with addresses people can remember? 

> >As soon as one is mentioned on the radio though, this changes
> >dramatically. To mention a name on the radio, you don't want one like
> >braintec-consult.de.
> 
> So advertise using a catchword catalog (If you enter braintec in your
> browser, Netscape Navigator redirects it to Google, ...)

Why would one want to do that? Search engines produce a large number of
results for a query, usually. That is not effective to advertize your
company. And proprietary systems like RealNames have not been a great
success to say the least. Not that I am unhappy about that...:-)

> >But then you probably don't need or want to advertize on radio. So the
> >name is fine for you.
> 
> How do you advertize your postal address over radio? How much is it to
> change the name of your town to braintec? Why do you want to do this with
> the internet postal addresses called domain names? Because it's cheap to
> abuse the system? Fuck off! (sorry)

Apologies accepted. The postal address of a site is perhaps better
compared to its IP number. Domain names are more inbetween names and
addresses. That is how they work. Don't like it, if you must. But accept
the fact.

> >Where you to sell consumer goods, it would not. If you sell shoes, you
> >don't need to have shoes.com or schuhe.de to sell them. happyfeet.com
> >would also be great.
> 
> Please do not overinterpret the power of addresses. It's not a search engine.

No it is not. I never said it was. Please, read before you type a reply.
Read, please, the first line of the message I was replying to and
disagreeing with. I merely tried to illustrate that DNS was *not* about
search engines but about easy ways of finding a site.

I am curious why that makes you so angry.

--
Marc Schneiders ------- Venster - http://www.venster.nl 
 marc@venster.nl - marc@bijt.net - marc@schneiders.org