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Updated September 20, 2023 Multiplexed Internet Domain Names
The ICANN
experiment has been a frustrating failure. Legacy
(pre-ICANN) top-level .com alone registers over 159 million
names. One thousand one hundred thirty six (1,136) of
ICANN's new generic TLDs register only 33.1
million (source: ntldstats.com). On 16 March,
2023, ICANN resolved to:
"continue ICANN org's ... strategy to promote the new gTLD
program to prospective applicants ... to enable the
introduction of new gTLDs..." The .com TLD has
held below 160 million registrations since February, 2022; on
September 19 fell to just below 159 million. ICANN's new top
levels have
grown slightly in the past year, yet still register 2 million names fewer than at their peak in 2020. Twenty-one new
generic top-level domains have entered general availability
since peak registration. The first thing
we learned about the web was 'content is king'. The
first thing ICANN did was try to convince us that 'domain
names are king'. The fate of ngTLDs could be predicted from the results of ICANN's 'legacy new domain' launch. Remember .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, and .pro? Two decades after they launched they register only 5,578,814 names. (TLD .info accounts for more than 67% of the legacy ngTLD total.) ICANN still insisted on launching a thousand more.
Imagine that domain names are like towns and cities. Some top-level domains are huge, many are small, and some are definitely ghost towns. Each town and city has named streets and roads, but there can only be one street of any particular name in each town. In today's domain name system, you have to own your own street to live in that city. Now imagine that several people or companies want to live on 'the same street' in the same town. You add house numbers to street names for each property. It means you don't need to own your street just to live there, you own a property address on the street. That's the simple, real life principle behind Multiplexed Domain Names. The concept and technology are simple. The idea isn't established for domain names the way it is for street addresses - but it provides the same advantages. Multiplexed Domain Names are the fastest, easiest, cheapest, most equitable, safest and most judicious way to solve complex domain name problems and provide any individual or organization with a short, appropriate, easy-to-remember domain name under their preferred domain top level. Generic name users have shown they want .com domains, while national users often prefer country code domains. Domain multiplexing can be applied equally to any top level. If there are almost 160 million .com names registered; is there any need for another 160 million? How many telephone numbers have registered users? Why has the Internet been designed with less capacity than the international telephone network? Have websites lost out to social media identities. Search for the name Ford on Facebook - there are at least 100. Müller is the
most common surname in Germany, but there can be only one
müller.de Do you see the problem in this pattern? Most names, and even trademark terms, are not unique! The domain name system is hierarchical, Multiplexed Names add a hierarchical level within second level names. This extra level supports multiple use of 'the same' name without ambiguity under the same top-level domain. Examples could include name.com, name*1.com, name*2.com, etc. We suggest the asterisk as a multiplexing symbol since it often means 'wildcard' - potentially 'one of many'. Inserting the asterisk in domain names requires a small code addition to browsers. That's because the asterisk, by design, is part of the character set that cannot be translated by the Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) software that lives in every web browser. An alternative, IDN-based solution is quick and simple but wouldn't work as easily in the US, and isn't universal. National or regional variants could support the rapid application of name multiplexing. For example €, the Euro sign, could provide a simple multiplexing token for members of the European Union: examples might include müller€1.de, martin€2.fr, and so on. The UK could apply the pound sign £ for the same purpose. Universality however - the same character meaning the same thing regardless of TLD - is highly desirable for security and inter-operability. Problems solved by Multiplexed Names include: - Existing domain names remain unchanged; no current owners lose their domain names. - Anyone can get any name they have a right to, under any TLD. This respects the reality that most names, and even trademark terms, aren't globally unique. Companies, organizations and people can identify themselves by their familiar names. - No
one can buy and warehouse a domain name to prevent
it from being used, or to extract an unreasonable
price. Name speculation, which raises prices
by restricting access to names, becomes less
profitable. -
Internet users who want their own name aren't
forced to employ social media. - They remove the rationale for speculating in domain names - a valueless driver of name registrations. Modern browsers that combine the address line with a search function already support the concept of Multiplexed Names by promoting easy recognition/identification of different owners. This proposal would not grant Verisign, who run the .com registry, an unfair advantage. User preference is the final arbiter since all top-level domains are treated equally. Domain names as we know them were introduced in 1983. The only major improvement since then was the introduction of Internationalized Domain Names that support characters and scripts outside standard ASCII English. IDNs were introduced in 2003, that's 2 decades ago! When
the US Department of Commerce created
ICANN they
never mentioned
customer benefit
or user
demand. Their
primary concern was: The DoC also runs the US Patent and Trademark Office. They could have said: "compete by inventing a better system" but instead ICANN was founded and populated by groups that supported launching new TLDs - to give themselves products to sell. That's not public service. ICANN's new generic top-level domains: fiasco and farce; fraud? Legacy .com registrations have been stuck just below 160 million since March, 2022, so how have ICANN's new generic top-level domains worked out? Not real well! Past
performance does not indicate future
success. The largest ngTLD was .icu from
December 2019 through January, 2021, with as
many as - Thirty-eight percent of the ngTLDs followed by ntldstats.com have fewer than 100 registered names, and twenty-four percent had only 1 registered name. What's the point? Only 6 of 1136 ngTLDs register over 1 million names today and the largest has fallen from 6.23 million to below 3.3 million (source: research.domaintools.com). - In November of 2017 the .loan ngTLD registered over 2 million names. Today .loan has only 6,086 registrations.- The ngTLD-supporting community has been silent about ngTLD registration data. What conclusions should we draw about the support community? Who rushed to register all the 'expendable' domain names, and why? Were registries running a 'fear of missing out' ploy, hoping it would lead to additional domain registrations, or was it perhaps an attempt to create a false secondary market with inflated prices? Any well financed registry can pad registration figures to demonstrate its top-level domain is popular. Since ICANN earns 18 cents per registration, it is not in ICANN's interest to question the validity of registration claims. A follow-up question: how reliable are any registry statistics regarding registrations; can we believe the reported size of the market at all? Is it realistic that only 10 among the top 1136 new domains should account for more than 50% of all ngTLD name registrations? The new TLDs aren't alone in presenting questionable user value. The ccTLD count presented in VeriSign's quarterly Domain Name Brief now eliminates .tk, .cf, .ga, .gq and .ml. They have been removed for presenting 'unbelievable' figures. Was this the kind of 'smoke and mirrors' competition envisioned by the Department of Commerce when it sanctioned ICANN? ICANN's multi-stakeholder governance has not prevented this abuse. The Internet Domain Name System was never designed to provide universal naming, and that has caused problems now so ingrained that most people accepted them as inevitable. Things as common as domain name disputes, name warehousing and auctions, and the drive to market unwanted new TLDs are consequences of a system not designed to provide universal naming. Most people, companies and trademark holders can't use their own names under their preferred top-level domain. The DNS is a technical system written to a technical specification. Problems can be resolved by extending the specification; Internationalized Domain Names show it is possible. Multiplexed Domain Names introduce a hierarchy within second level names. This makes the name-space under any top-level domain virtually unlimited. We need a new character to identify/generate a hierarchy. We suggest the asterisk as a multiplexing token, together with a number or letter(s). Compare the multiplexing token to the character that designates email addresses. MaratSade.fr could be seen as a domain name, but write it Mar@Sade.fr and you recognize it instantly as an email address. The same transparency can apply to domain names if an asterisk indicates multiple use of the same name. Martin*2.fr and Martin*5.fr would resolve as different, separate domains under the French country code domain. The asterisk indicates 'one of many'. The final numbers (or letters) indicate 'which' of several users. Technically, names are registered in a set format and translated by a simple edge application to include the multiplexing token. This is similar to, but not the same as, the system used to generate foreign characters and scripts in Internationalized Domain Names. Aren't domain names ICANN's responsibility? Can't you just add numbers, or edit the software already used to translate foreign characters? See the answer to those and other relevant questions under: Questions and Answers (Updated March 1, 2023). When did it become appropriate to let organizations like ICANN define the problem, create the solution, and then universally sanction and profit from that solution without competition or independent oversight? Multiplexed Names nested with Internationalized Names would make Universalized names available to anyone, anywhere, in any language or script - under their country code, legacy, or preferred new generic top-level domain. Is registering your own name, under your preferred TLD, the same sort of universal right as having a telephone number? Or do we support a privileged minority 'owning their own names' and excluding the majority. Registering your own domain name isn't a problem when Everyone can be a Star. (Updated March 1, 2023) Multiplexed Names demonstrate how the Internet domain name system can evolve to eliminate unnecessary restrictions and provide relevant names for everyone. Multiplexed Names are not offered as a product; we have no interest, past or present, in any domain registry, registrar, or re-seller. The combined URL address line/search field in modern browsers is ready to support Multiplexed Domain Names through disambiguation. Prototype
Multiplexed Domain Names following all
applicable standards have been tested live
over the Internet. Nothing broke. Last updated September 20, 2023 |