On Wed, 30 Jun 1999, 9:32:48 AM GMT Robert Elz wrote:


>The DNS isn't a search engine.  It is woefully hopeless at that.   It's
>about as good as someone with a phone with letters on it typing in nnnPIZZA
>for every value of nnn they can think of until they end up at a pizza shop.
>Useless...
>
>However that doesn't stop people doing it.   What will stop it is when the
>browsers start doing real directory lookups when people type random words
>instead of URLs.  It isn't the user who wants to do DNS style directory
>searches, that is just what the browser happens to do.  The browsers will
>start doing better when there are real directories with data in them that
>they can use.  The browser authors know that doing random DNS lookups is a
>stupid idea, they just don't have anything better yet.   Better is coming
>however (or it looks as if it hopefully is).

I am not sure what you mean by this. Domain names will be around for a long
time to come. Search engines and plenty of nice front ends to those search
engines already exist. Many browsers support them. Look at Apple's Sherlock
technology if you want to see a really good implementation of this type of
thing already out there.

However, this does not change the fact that every day millions of people type
in www.books.com to get find a book. Regardless of your position, generic
domain names are worth money in sales dollars.

>
>My personal belief is that domain names ought to be preserved and used
>carefully, in just the same way as other resources that we have, not all
>splurged on the current generation to make as much from as they can on,
leaving
>nothing worthwhile for those who will come in future years.   In the early

So how about my suggestion that these names all be registered with the root
DNS servers and web servers/automated email servers set up to handle queries
to them. These queries are then redirected to the main search engines
(Altavista, Yahoo, Excite, etc). Does this not solve the problem?

You talk about protecting this "resource", but what is the resource to be
protected? If they are not used, they are of no use to anyone and just cause
the end-user more frustration when they get that domain not found error.

Now my real annoyance is this: there is either corruption or incompetence
involved when Fairfax can step up to the plate and register:

sold.com.au

Yet, it seems such names are locked out to normal users going through the
normal channels. This has happened, not 4 years ago, but just recently.

Who is actually reponsible for determining what can be registered and what
cannot? Where can we get a copy of the "not to be registered" list?

Ari Maniatis



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