No one can hear you scream in namespace
An article in the NY Times talks about a specific instance of the problem of domain name squatting--political name speculation. The reporter points out that almost every conceivable pairing of candidates' names postpended with an '08 are gone. ObamaClinton08.com for instance.
Hollywood has dealt with this issue for a decade. Check out the clever use of names for new movies. Sony has given up and sticks the sites two or even three levels down such as: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/casinoroyale/site/. Some change the name as from "borat" to "boratmovie.com". Politicians could easily do the same thing.
I was the CTO of Network Solutions during the late 90s and we had this problem even then. It stems from an artificial scarcity situation stemming from the ubiquitious usage of the dot com top level domain. Even though other TLDs are now available, the dot coms are the premium space and politicians like movies, want to be there.
I'm not sure what the solution is to this naming problem, but someone other than ICANN (the domain name czar organization) needs to solve it. It's time for a clever startup to find a different way to do directory lookups on the Internet and in the process, make a lot of money.
Posted on November 20, 2006
