I Would if I Could, ICANN, so I Won’t.

There are two different problems inherent in this story about the new top-level-domain “.kosher”.

Problem one: the o-k is a major, reliable, and reputable supervisor, but they are neither the only nor the largest of supervisions. “Which supervision agencies are acceptable” is an excellent question – one which is really (theoretically) best directed at one’s LOR (local orthodox rabbi), although KosherQuest is a great place to start. A glance over at KosherQuest shows a gazillion supervisions which are widely considered reliable, and then there are another gazillion which aren’t on that list. So it’s a bit concerning that a single agency would establish a worldwide monopoly from an Internet perspective.

Problem two: the new TLDs are stupid from the get-go, and this is a great example of why. In the way that .museum is not really used by anyone (hint: what domain do you think the Smithsonian or the Louvre, or the Getty use?), this too is redundant.

(Oh, and don’t give me any static about all of the names listed in the full second-level search of .museum – those are largely redirects to the actual, real domains used by the museums, which are held in other TLDs. Why, precisely, is “search” such a problem? I know that I would have an easier time going to a preferred search engine looking for “Louvre”, and that search engine will even correct my spelling and send me to the page appropriate for my browser language preference, while the .museum redirect is top-level only.) Another fight that’s going on is over the .amazon between the purveyor of pretty much everything and the countries which have a similarly named jungle.

Would we end up with ok.kosher, ou.kosher, stark.kosher etc? Personally, I’d want to buy the second-level domain “porkisnot”, or perhaps “ikeep”. But please, ICANN, reconsider this foolishness.