[OPLIN 4cast] OPLIN 4cast #333: Domains without dots

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OPLIN 4Cast

OPLIN 4cast #333: Domains without dots
May 8th, 2013

ICANN logoOver a year ago, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names 
and Numbers (ICANN), the organization that is responsible for 
coordinating Internet domain names and IP addresses, announced that it 
would accept applications for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). 
[See 4cast #235 <http://www.oplin.org/4cast/?p=1985>.] Current gTLDs 
include .com and .org, but now companies and organizations have 
submitted applications for a wide range of proposed new gTLDs - such as 
.book. Google has gone one step further and proposed a "dotless" domain 
that would consist of only one word: "search" (http://search/). And that 
proposal has stirred up the debate about the wisdom of allowing dotless 
domains on the Internet and Google's motives.

  * Google wants to operate .search as a "dotless" domain, plans to open
    .cloud, .blog and .app to others
    <http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/10/google-wants-to-operate-search-as-a-dotless-domain/>
    (TechCrunch/Frederic Lardinois) "Google plans to run http://search/
    as a redirect service that 'allows for registration by any search
    website providing a simple query interface.' 'The mission of the
    proposed gTLD, .search, is to provide a domain name space that makes
    it easier for Internet users to locate and make use of the search
    functionality of their choice,' Google writes in its amended
    application."
  * On dotless domains and domainless TLD's
    <https://medium.com/the-rolled-up-newspaper/56c13f710359> (The
    Rolled-Up Newspaper/Andrew Johnson) "So why would Google want to
    promote a way to search elsewhere when there's no real threat to
    their position as top dog in search? [...] ICANN is probably much
    more amenable to allowing a dotless TLD-a risky and huge departure
    from standard practice-knowing its operator is tied to a promise to
    include others. In this case, Google would just be investing in
    familiarizing people with the concept of a domain-less TLD, dotted
    or not, and they plan to do this to additional TLD's down the road:
    first proprietary TLD's ('google,' 'android') and maybe later
    generic TLD's in a proprietary manner, if they could swing it
    ('maps' being exclusive to Google Maps, or 'translate' from Google
    Translate, for instance)."
  * SSAC report on dotless domains
    <http://www.icann.org/en/groups/ssac/documents/sac-053-en.pdf> [pdf]
    (ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee) "Other security
    issues may arise if dotless domains are permitted to host content
    directly. The advent of such hosting will violate a longstanding
    (more than 20 year) assumption that a dotless hostname is within an
    organization's trust sphere. In Windows, for instance, this means
    that a dotless host may be considered to be in the Intranet zone,
    and is accorded the security privileges conveyed to sites in that
    zone. These privileges are significant and may, depending on the
    user's configuration, permit code execution."
  * ICANN, the GAC, SSAC and gTLDs: Challenges with dotless domains and
    closed generics
    <http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mthree/archive/2013/04/15/gtld-041513.aspx> (MSDN
    Blogs/M3 Sweatt) "As we summarized in our comments
    <http://forum.icann.org/lists/sac053-dotless-domains/pdfjobOOzS93n.pdf> [pdf],
    Microsoft supports and endorses the report's recommendations against
    use of dotless domains. There are significant security
    considerations around the use of dotless domains with new gTLDs,
    generally a bad idea that would create significant security risks
    for people using the Internet. Dotless domain names are often
    resolved by operating systems, browsers and other products to
    addresses on the local network / intranet. Our recommendation is to
    use Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs) - sometimes referred to an
    absolute domain name - to ensure that people get where they are
    expecting when they type in an address on the Internet URL."

*/Technical fact:/*

At the very least, handling dotless domains would require extensive 
revisions to current web browsers and Internet apps. Such software 
typically interprets and completes shortened domain names and does not 
insist on use of fully qualified domain names.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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