Internet Users
Confused yet? Don’t be, But you should be aware, informed and prepared for the changes ahead.
Internet Users and Consumers
Anyone who uses the internet will be affected when 200 new top level domains are showing up online. In some cases it could make navigation more intuitive. Some of the concerns may be with confusion and criminal activity.
Benefits – Individuals will have new ways to express themselves online, establish a presence.,
search and navigation may becore more intuitive, easier to identify what you are looking for.
Costs Confusion, fraud, criminal activity.
Has been a major concern and subject of debate through the entire process. Critics of the New gTLD have proclaimed that this will result in chaos among uses and massive amounts of fraud and criminal activity. While overstated imo, anytime there is change like this, criminals will try to find a way to exploit it.
The best way to protect oneself is to be Informed, Prepared and Careful
end users should expect to start seeing different looking web addresses in their search results, and browsers, and links. It will be perfectly normal within two years to see web addresses such as embarcarderopizza.sfo, or embarcardero.shoes , embarcadero.pizza. There will be TLD’s representing locations, interests, consumer goods, industries. Consumers will need to understand what each TLD represents, how it is used, how it will conduct itself. Some TLD’s such as .SECURE are being developed solely to provide a vault like TLD for high security needs.The .BANK TLD initiative states that the intended use for .BANK domains will be reserved exclusively for banks and related banking businesses with verification and eligibility requirements. .KIDS will be a generic TLD designed for kid related topics, but that does not necessarily mean it can and will be entirely kid safe. There are exploitive potentials for that TLD with harmful consequences when and if that TLD is approved.
End Users may want to understand what the important policies and procedures /eligibility requirements may be for a particular TLD to help determine how they will interact with sites that use it.
The first step is to understand the change that’s coming and be prepared to learn more as the process unfolds to reality and the norm.
Be Careful/ be Safe
Most of the possible difficulties and harms that could be a result of the new gtlds for end users and consumers can be mitigated with Basic Safe Internet Use Recommendations.
