Inventor of the WWW not a fan of fresh TLDs

Count Tim Berners-Lee among fresh TLD detractors.

Tim Berners-Lee, known as the inventor of the world wide web, isn’t a fan of fresh top level domains, he told Wired in a press conference at the W3C conference.

“My personal perspective is that what we need in the domain system is stability,” he stated. “We don’t need fresh arbitrary fresh TLDs.”

Berners-Lee also argued that there’s plenty of space — e.g. available domains — under current top level domains. I’m going to agree with him on that.

For Berners-Lee, the “only role” for a fresh domain name is “if you are making something that is socially different, such as dot org.” He stated that dot org was interesting since it captures the fact that you know that any website with that suffix is a non-profit.

The second sentence is factually incorrect, but I assume the reporter may have exaggerated Berners-Lee’s comment. Although .org is meant for non-profit causes and organizations, it is not a prerequisite to registration.

And of course fresh TLD proponents could extend this comment as proof of the value of fresh TLDs. .NYC would only be for firms and people in Fresh York City, much like .org was designed for non-profits.