Saving the Domain Name System : Domain Name Owners

[Slicing through the verbiage : a cold, sharp look at the proposal on the table]

Current domain name owners stand to lose from the creation of new domain names. The value of their current names will be diminished in several significant ways:-

• The loss of the "location" factor. Domain names currently serve as very simple mnemonics to remember a web site's URL. Even newcomers to the Internet learn within a few days that most addresses are of the form www.address.com, with a smaller number of addresses ending in .org, .net or .country. Once 7 [or whatever arbitrary number of names is finally chosen] new domains are introduced, the mnemonic aspect of the domain name becomes much less significant. Will I be interested in or able to remember that a site I visited was www.sitename.firm and not www.sitename.web or www.sitename.org, and so on ad nauseam...
• Companies will have to fight their battles all over again. For instance, if they have managed to secure the .com, .net and .org forms of your trademark or company name, they will now have to navigate their way through a tortuous and unfamiliar new system and get all 7 extra names before anyone else gets there.
• The loss of identity: once domain names become more common, the significance of each individual domain name is diminished.
• The loss of value: any resource that becomes less scarce also becomes less valuable.

A LITTLE GOOD NEWS: It is likely that .com names will retain their value, both monetary and mnemonic-related, since they are so ingrained in the public consciousness. To many people, .com names ARE the Internet.

[How the changes will affect domain name registrars]