I hate the whole .net .org .com co.uk and now .uk thing; these often don’t convey any information and just serve to confuse the user. The user asks is it example.com or example.co.uk or example.uk[/uk] (nowa days) ?
I wish that dns forbade registrations with a hyphen if they clash with a registration without hyphens and vice versa. So if I register example-2 then I automatically block anyone else from registering example2 and vice versa. The current .co.ukversus .uk is a similar idea.
I would suggest that all web browsers, or maybe even all dns resolvers, should strip out all hyphens from a label on an error and then retry when a TLD label contains a hyphen, that is.
This would save me a lot of money, block impersonation attacks, reduce confusion and prevent squatting. Similar restriction should cover other types of inessential punctuation. I have example-1 with and without hyphens and com + co.uk + uk + other tlds; the result of these options combined is an insane number. I have dozens of domain names for my wife’s business: with and without hyphens, plurals and other misspellings as an anti-impersonation measure and then there is the TLD multiplier. I could easily cut 75% or more off my costs with suitable rules about gTLDs.
It might be though that this is the wrong way to look at it: an alternative would be that when you register something you automatically get a ‘group registration set’ of names for free which prevent all of the evils of impersonation by creating multiple entries in the dns servers and then these are all managed as a group, in parallel.
However it’s done, I think that the co.uk vs .uk ought to be a model for how to manage enforced relations between labels.
I also think that a lot of tlds should be done away with, but now they are actually adding lots more which is utter madness unless it’s for groups where there are some enforced rules about entering the club and no impersonating business’ names. I have no problem with .hotel or .solicitor (or is it .solicitors - guesswork straight away).
I also think there should be business names and registered organisations’ names in a machine readable database above dns which is subject to legal checking. So for example a user can find out what is the entire list of domain names owned by the Barclay’s Bank say. That way web browsers could have anti-confusion tools and guidance for the user. A similar machine readable ‘all current gtlds and cctlds’ database would be nice; to tell the user the answer to is it xyz.plumber or xyz.plumbing for a specific dns name or .solicitor vs .solicitors for ‘what’s the correct gtld I should be using anyway’
