Is there any where I could get a top level domain (TLD) as .list ?

April 14, 2009 1:05 AM

Is there any where I could get a top level domain (TLD) as .list ? Or in the near future?

I have heard that there might be a way to have .list or .mag top level domains.
Does anyone know if and when they would be available or any information about the rulings / people in charge of this sort of thing?

posted by schindyguy to computers & internet (7 comments total)

all regular searches for it show that i cant, but i was hoping someone here would be able to help me
posted by schindyguy at 1:05 AM on April 14

I'm not sure whatever happened to this, but if those changes ever went through, looks like you'd need $100K to even think about opening the door. Doesn't appear that they have yet, though.
posted by DavidNYC at 1:23 AM on April 14 [1 favorite]

As a technical note, you could have it this way on a private network in which you controlled all of the DNS servers - so, you could make it so that anyone who types in "http://www.mydomain.list" from a computer at your own company goes to the web site you want it to - but that domain name wouldn't work this way for anyone else on the internet outside of your company / private network.

Similarly, it's technically possible that a particular ISP could set this up for you, but it again would only affect that ISP's customers and I don't even know if ISPs do this sort of thing. (Probably not, it would be a bad idea for several reasons.)
posted by XMLicious at 8:03 AM on April 14 [1 favorite]

At this time, there is no .list TLD, so there's no registrar that could let you register it.

As XMLicious said, it's technically possible to configure a .list TLD on a DNS server. However, any domain on that DNS server would only be visible to people using your DNS server; this is related to how DNS works. There's no official way to make your server a root server for the TLD so everyone in the world can find it.

What it boils down to, unfortunately, is that at this time it's not possible to do transparently.
posted by caphector at 10:43 AM on April 14

Thanks but I would be using this as a regular/marketing/for-profit venture.

I hope that they will open it up in the near future but I have heard that you would have to have $100k to support ICANN's infrastructure/deployment of new gTLDs...does that sound right?
posted by schindyguy at 5:26 PM on April 14

See DavidNYC's links above on adding new TLD's.

"supporting ICANN's infrastructure/deployment" is a fancy term for money grab. It's a few lines of code and a few minutes of someone's work over there. :/
posted by rokusan at 10:40 PM on April 14

ICANN has delayed the possible deployment of new or "vanity" TLDs. Applications for the TLDs will not even be accepted until December 2009 at the earliest. You can follow information on "over-arching issues" here.

They have been facing increasing backlash over this plan, despite the interest from a variety of groups, including the backers of geo-specific TLDs and things like .eco, which is backed by Al Gore.

There are already a few organizations that have cropped up to help would be "registries" start a new TLD. Minds + Machines is a leading in that area. They have a great graphic for the timeline of new GTLDs here.

A Domain Name Registrar like Name.com (disclosure: my employer), Network Solutions, or Register.com cannot offer a TLD that does not exist yet. In order to make a new TLD financially viable there's got to be a compelling reason to use a TLD. I cannot imagine the compelling use for the average individual or company to use a TLD like .list - whereas .mag couple be interesting, but very limited.

The recent introduction of the .TEL TLD has shown that there is interest, even if the TLD is limited to a very specific use. There have been over 100k .tels registered since it's launch last year. The majority of those registrations came after the March 23, 2009 general availability. The number is all the more impressive when you consider that GoDaddy is not a .tel registrar. We believe that Name.com is the leading registrar in the .TEL namespace. If/when new TLDs are introduced we plan to be involved with as many as possible that make sense.
posted by FlamingBore at 11:37 AM on April 16