Scarcity by design, not by definition

As we have seen in the previous post of this series, there has never been a real scarcity of domain name extensions, but a carefully planned creation of new ones to feed the market throughout the years, with the exception of the country code TLDs and their international character set support. Beside the mere cost of a domain name, whether it is a regular one, an internationalized domain, or one of the nearly 2,000 soon-to-be launched over-priced extensions, there are still hidden costs to be aware of, most of them being external ones.

Domain names: the big leap forward

There are now 302 domain name extensions, of which 280 are geographical, and 22 generic. Strengthened by this observation, the ICANN has unilaterally decided the need to drastically increase the number of these extensions by opening an unprecedented process of creation by its order of magnitude.

Domain names: let's get international

After a brief overview of the history of domain names, both at a technical level and at the level of administration entities, we are going to see in this post how we are moving from an English-speaking Internet to an Internet open to other alphabets and syllabaries.

History of domain names

Domain names management is an interesting example of scarcity economy, since the resource itself, the fact of linking a domain name to a set of numbers, is virtually unlimited. Why are we still paying for the right to link a domain name to an IP address? This is what we will try to discover through this series of posts about the history of domain names.

The .post, a new domain name extension

The .post sponsored top-level domain has been finally delegated on August, 7 2012. It is sponsored by the Universal Postal Union headquartered in Bern, Switzerland. Established in 1874, this specialized agency of the United Nations sets the rules for international mail exchanges and makes recommendations to stimulate growth in mail, parcel and financial services volumes and improve quality of service for customers.

No need to reserve your domain name right away though, as the .post extension is restricted to the use of national and regional postal services and private businesses that provide similar services.

Types of domain names extensions

Domain names extensions can be classified in a typology based on their use, a priori or not, like for instance geographic extensions or according to the activity they involve.

Domain name with .fr extension

So you want to buy a domain name with the extension .fr?

Everything is not allowed, as this extension is only available under conditions. In fact, to make up for cybersquatting and to allow a better representation of the French cities and communes, they are entitled to buy them first.