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http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,17387943^15342^^nbv^15306-15319,00.html
A DUTCH technology company has breathed life into a project to rid the internet of suffixes such as .com.
Such a system, which enables countries, individuals and firms to have a web address which consists of a single name, offers flexibility and is language and character independent.
"The plan is to offer names in any character set," said Erik Seeboldt, managing director of Amsterdam-based UnifiedRoot.
UnifiedRoot offers practically unlimited numbers of suffixes, unlike the short list of suffixes currently in use. Its offer is different from other "alternative root" providers such as New.net which offers to register names in front of a small range of new suffixes, such as .club and .law.
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"We've already had thousands of registrations in a single day," Mr Seeboldt said after the official opening of his 100-strong company.
UnifiedRoot has installed 13 internet domain name system (DNS) root servers on four continents.
Dutch airport Schiphol is one of the early customers. Registering a name costs $US1,000 ($1360) plus an annual fee of $US240. Companies can then invent additional web site addresses in front of their top-level domain (TLD) name, such as flights.schiphol or parking.schiphol.
Critics argue alternative root companies such as UnifiedRoot introduce ambiguity because they bring a new set of traffic rules to the web which are, certainly in the beginning, only recognized by a limited number of computers around the world.
"Those who claim to be able to add new 'suffixes' or 'TLDs' are generally pirates or con-men with something to sell," said Paul Vixie on his CircleID blog. Mr Vixie sits on several committees of the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which has day-to-day control of the web.
Others are more welcoming.
"The existence of alternate roots, and the possibility of new ones, provides a useful competitive check on ICANN," said Jon Weinberg, a member of ICANNwatch, which keeps a critical eye on ICANN.
ICANN is overseen by the US Department of Commerce and operates the root servers of the internet which guide all web traffic. The organisation also determines which top-level domains are recognised by those root servers.
At the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society earlier this month, many countries said they wanted to take part in the governance of ICANN. But the United States would not give up control.
UnifiedRoot plans to take advantage of unhappiness about ICANN by offering geographic locations for free to countries, regions and cities.
If alternative root companies want their TLDs recognised by computers around the world, they need to circumvent ICANN by pointing every single internet computer around the world to their own root servers - which contain a copy of ICANN's root server as well as the new TLDs.
A quicker way to change the settings in individual computers is by closing deals with internet service providers (ISPs) which can change the settings for all their subscribers.
Reuters
A DUTCH technology company has breathed life into a project to rid the internet of suffixes such as .com.
Such a system, which enables countries, individuals and firms to have a web address which consists of a single name, offers flexibility and is language and character independent.
"The plan is to offer names in any character set," said Erik Seeboldt, managing director of Amsterdam-based UnifiedRoot.
UnifiedRoot offers practically unlimited numbers of suffixes, unlike the short list of suffixes currently in use. Its offer is different from other "alternative root" providers such as New.net which offers to register names in front of a small range of new suffixes, such as .club and .law.
ADVERTISEMENT
"We've already had thousands of registrations in a single day," Mr Seeboldt said after the official opening of his 100-strong company.
UnifiedRoot has installed 13 internet domain name system (DNS) root servers on four continents.
Dutch airport Schiphol is one of the early customers. Registering a name costs $US1,000 ($1360) plus an annual fee of $US240. Companies can then invent additional web site addresses in front of their top-level domain (TLD) name, such as flights.schiphol or parking.schiphol.
Critics argue alternative root companies such as UnifiedRoot introduce ambiguity because they bring a new set of traffic rules to the web which are, certainly in the beginning, only recognized by a limited number of computers around the world.
"Those who claim to be able to add new 'suffixes' or 'TLDs' are generally pirates or con-men with something to sell," said Paul Vixie on his CircleID blog. Mr Vixie sits on several committees of the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which has day-to-day control of the web.
Others are more welcoming.
"The existence of alternate roots, and the possibility of new ones, provides a useful competitive check on ICANN," said Jon Weinberg, a member of ICANNwatch, which keeps a critical eye on ICANN.
ICANN is overseen by the US Department of Commerce and operates the root servers of the internet which guide all web traffic. The organisation also determines which top-level domains are recognised by those root servers.
At the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society earlier this month, many countries said they wanted to take part in the governance of ICANN. But the United States would not give up control.
UnifiedRoot plans to take advantage of unhappiness about ICANN by offering geographic locations for free to countries, regions and cities.
If alternative root companies want their TLDs recognised by computers around the world, they need to circumvent ICANN by pointing every single internet computer around the world to their own root servers - which contain a copy of ICANN's root server as well as the new TLDs.
A quicker way to change the settings in individual computers is by closing deals with internet service providers (ISPs) which can change the settings for all their subscribers.
Reuters
