Question: I first learnt about ICANN @Large on Jakob Nielsen's usability website www.useit.com. How important do you think it is to make the domain name system easy to use and what are your ideas for achieving this goal?

Nominee Replies

Alf Hansen - posted on 2000-09-21 01:39:25 The domain name system is not Yellow Pages. A domain name was designed to be a human readable version of an IP address. The URL version of domain names have developed to be labels used for a lot of purposes, including marketing. Because they are easy enough to remember, URLs (including domain names) are very important both for providers of goods and services and consumers. Domain names are also important in e-mail addresses. The domain names can be made easy to use in many ways. Many of the ccTLDs thinks that an organisational structure is best, and they are using a naming policy reflecting this view. Other TLDs are completely open, and you can register any text string meaning anything, as long as it is unique. I think there is a need for both open and so called closed TLDs and the registrants should have the choice to pick the best TLD for their purpose. A structure where you have to register every domain under every TLD is not contributing to a user friendly domain name space. In the long run domain names will lose their importance, because improved WEB portals and search engines will be better tools for consumers to find the products and services they are looking for.