Jerry Brito on Expanding the Number of Internet Domain Names

Rock1997

Today the Internet has 22 generic top-level domain names—from .com and .gov to .org and .info—and they're all essentially the same. As anyone who's tried to register a new domain name lately can tell you, the good ones are all taken. Magazine.com, libertarian.com, plumbing.com (or .net or .biz for that matter) are all in use. Soon websites will be able to have names that end with almost any word: .painting, .proctology, .whatever.  Unsurprisingly, there is no shortage of indignation over the domain name expansion. According to Jerry Brito, a parade of objections—both notionally and officially—threaten the Internet with not just bad policy, but with the possibility of government control.