Why the new domain-name lottery is a train wreck

Do we really need addresses that end in .beer or .movie? ICANN seems to think that we do, and the lottery to determine which ones are ultimately accepted got under way on June 13.

The agency seems to think this will increase competition, but it seems more likely to cause unnecessary chaos and upheaval. This particular train was set in motion over a year ago, when ICANN — the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a former U.S. agency that is now a non-profit managed by industry representatives — said it planned to broaden the domain-name system. The process was launched earlier this year, and allowed anyone to apply for a new top-level domain of their choice (provided they paid a $185,000 fee). Cities such as New York and Paris have applied for their own names, as have companies such as Coca-Cola and Apple, and both Google and Amazon have applied for a bewildering variety of names, including .lol and .book.