Internet Society told to halt .org sale by its own advisory council

Re:Internet Society told to halt .org sale by its own adviso... by JMTQp8lwXL on Wednesday February 19, 2020 @11:11AM (#22366790)

Does anyone actually use or go to services on super-generic TLDs like that? I can't think of any billion-dollar businesses that exist at <genericword>.com. I can't imagine they're as valuable as people make them out to be, because businesses have brands that aren't generic words like "money" or "drugs". There's "amazon" but the business has nothing do with rainforests, so it's not like they're benefitting from traffic from people wishing to learn about the rainforest (much like we might imagine money.com would offer a financial service, or drugs.com pharmaceuticals).

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Re:Internet Society told to halt .org sale by its own adviso... by Wowfunhappy on Wednesday February 19, 2020 @11:15AM (#22366831)

> Does anyone actually use or go to services on super-generic TLDs like that?

Well, I occasionally read CNET, which has the domain "news.com".

But, the fact that domain points to CNET rather than something more well-known (and general-interest) is itself great evidence of the unimportance of general domains.

Also, CBS Interactive bought CNET more than a decade ago, and the news.com domain with it. CBS has kept the domain pointed to CNET rather than, say, having it point to cbsnews.com.

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Re:Internet Society told to halt .org sale by its own adviso... by jannes on Wednesday February 19, 2020 @12:40PM (#22367872)

The only one that comes to mind is booking.com.

facebook.com maybe as well although it has given the word a new meaning.

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Re:Internet Society told to halt .org sale by its own adviso... by GFischer on Friday February 21, 2020 @02:49PM (#22386138)

I work for the owners of vacation.com , but to be honest the owners have never managed to leverage the domain into a great funnel. They're a multibillion dollar business but not thanks to the domain name.

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Re:Internet Society told to halt .org sale by its own adviso... by alasdair_ on Wednesday February 19, 2020 @02:24PM (#22369048)

I’m still waiting for the $45 million spent on color.com and colour.com to pay off...

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Re:Internet Society told to halt .org sale by its own adviso... by JohnFen on Wednesday February 19, 2020 @03:30PM (#22369722)

> Does anyone actually use or go to services on super-generic TLDs like that?

I don't, because those names are almost always used by major corporations and the like, and I almost never am interested those websites.

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Re:Internet Society told to halt .org sale by its own adviso... by toyg on Wednesday February 19, 2020 @08:18PM (#22371922)

DIY.com is the website for B&Q, the largest UK retailer of diy tools, turnover £4bn (owned by Kingfisher).

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Re:Internet Society told to halt .org sale by its own adviso... by rascul on Wednesday February 19, 2020 @05:32PM (#22370819)

weather.com

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Re:Internet Society told to halt .org sale by its own adviso... by colejohnson66 on Wednesday February 19, 2020 @04:04PM (#22370029)

Disney still uses go.com

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Re:Internet Society told to halt .org sale by its own adviso... by JMTQp8lwXL on Wednesday February 19, 2020 @07:03PM (#22371510)

Go.com has basically the same header as disney.com, and the main body content is just a list of web assets owned by Disney-- surprised to see FiveThirtyEight listed next to more traditional Disney content, didn't feel very cohesive. I would speculate this site doesn't get a ton of traffic since A/B testing could likely yield a higher level of conversion for whatever they're trying to achieve here.

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Re:Internet Society told to halt .org sale by its own adviso... by kick on Wednesday February 19, 2020 @02:25PM (#22369060)

pets.com

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Re:Internet Society told to halt .org sale by its own adviso... by JMTQp8lwXL on Wednesday February 19, 2020 @07:16PM (#22371594)

Redirects to a major retailer for pet and animal products.

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Re:Internet Society told to halt .org sale by its own adviso... by kick on Thursday February 20, 2020 @01:42AM (#22373168)

Am I really getting old enough to where modern developers know nothing about the dot com crash?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pets.com

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Re:Internet Society told to halt .org sale by its own adviso... by JMTQp8lwXL on Thursday February 20, 2020 @12:26PM (#22376725)

Ha, I know that. But my point is, you don't see petsmart.com 302'ing to pets.com. You see the opposite. Which furthers the point that <genericword>.com's aren't that valuable. Since Pets.com didn't last all that long, it might not be fair to characterize it's short-term existence and high-market value as a sustaining, legitimate billion-dollar business.

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