Google Announces .new Domain Availability

[Cogito]

So the stated use case is for 'performing new actions online: any act that leads to creation can have a quick and memorable .new shortcut associated with it.'

So it's expecting users to go to a different website to perform one specific action, and then return to the original website?

If I'm on github.com, click the new repo button, and get redirected to 'repo.new' I'm assuming the website has been hacked.

If I want to create a new repo on github the last thing I'm going to think is 'oh yeah, I'll just type repo.new and that will be super easy' - I'll go to github.com and click the new repo button.

I just have no idea why anyone would use a whole .new domain to achieve the stated purpose!

[derefr]

Other way around: repo.new would redirect to github.com/repositories/new.

Imagine a webapp whose landing view page is very heavy-to-load because it’s a view of your library of documents. Like, say, Google Docs. Now imagine there’s a thing you can type instead of docs.google.com (i.e. https://docs.new) that’ll let you skip past that library view, straight to a blank new document view, so you can immediately start typing. That’s the idea here.

[reaperducer]

I just have no idea why anyone would use a whole .new domain to achieve the stated purpose!

Domain squatting is so last decade. The 20's are going to be all about corporate TLD squatting.

[Already__Taken]

docs.new is pretty convenient

[laurent123456]

> That means that all .new domains registrations must: ...

I don't get why anyone would want this over a regular domain with which they can do whatever they want with no restrictions.

It's just another way for Google to control and have a say over other people's businesses. For sure we'll see again posts about people having had their product destroyed because Google cut them off with no way to appeal.

[Already__Taken]

This is pretty normal, all registras have usage restrictions. Most are poorly enforced but googles reqs seem pretty reasonable, The problem with all registers is you have very little recourse.

I quite like gsuite but if your only domain is bought as a google TLD on google domains with your gsuite account via google pay with google voice contact details and gmail contacts. God help you.

[Prawnz]

Because I can't buy pizza.com but now I have a shot at pizza.new I guess. Some companies are willing to jump through hoops if it gets them a good domain

[apacheCamel]

I am pretty new to this space and I have a couple domains registered for some site ideas I would like to pursue in the future. Do all non-.com domains have these kind of restrictions? I thought they were always recommendations? How and why would Google ever think it is cool to restrict how I use a domain, other than the obvious illegal activities I guess?

[sk84life]

Anyway.. anything Google or Facebook does these days.. give me creeps .. I am worried that internet evolution is going towards corporate censorship with licences and we have to have lifeline socket open to Google's data center 247.

That's real HALLOWEEN for me tbh.

[sk84life]

Exactly what I was thinking too.. well said. BigUp!

[appleshore]

The only super useful version of this idea is a privacy law that requires services that collect data to offer a “facebook.delete” link to temporarily and permanently remove personal data.

[profmonocle]

I'm not keen on legally mandating the use of a particular domain extension, unless that extension is managed by a non-profit. Some of the newly-added TLDs have exorbitant annual fees, and if businesses were legally required to use them they could charge whatever they pleased.

Plus, you'd have a collision problem. What if one company has foobar.com and another has foobar.net, and they both collect data? (Imagine they're in completely different industries and the term itself is fairly generic, so there's no possibility of a trademark dispute.) They can't both get the ".delete" version of their second-level label.

(I realize I'm probably overthinking this.)

[twhb]

facebook.com/.well-known/delete would be a better endpoint. .well-known is already standardized, facebook.com/.well-known/change-password is already implemented, and you have proof you’re dealing with the right party.

[ChrisGranger]

Please, please, please let this become a thing. I hate how many sites force you to jump through hoops to remove your data and/or close your account.

[tristanperry]

So Google are doing their best to 'kill off' URLs in Chrome and Search, but are simultaneously launching a new gTLD with rules that dictate exactly what URLs under .new should use?

This seems like a case of 'the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing'.

[waiseristy]

I'm still of the opinion that tld's are a complete scam. There should be a flat rate across all of them. Google and Donuts are a drain on the internet infrastructure.

[joelennon]

I like the concept behind this but I think the implementation is flawed as it binds the actions to specific providers. For example - repo.new only creates repos on GitHub, playlist.new only creates playlists on Spotify and the music.new thing for OVO Sound is just odd, being specific to a custom cover art generator thing.

For me, the better implementation would be where for each "action" there are numerous providers and at a user level you could define which one you want to use. So user A goes to repo.new and gets redirected to GitHub, user B goes to GitLab, user C to Bitbucket and so on. The first time you go to the action you're prompted to select which service you want to use by default and from then on you go straight through.

[Prawnz]

I think you might have wires crossed, .new is a domain. So if github buy repo.new then they can host on it. Good names are first come, first served

If Pizzahut bought pizza.new they could host a webservice on there provided the webservice resulted in something new.

[kristiandupont]

I use a .io domain and I get why .com isn't sufficient, but I really fail to see the value that this, along with most of the other cute new tld's, bring to the world.

More than anything, I fear that it will teach my parents that domains can look like anything, so that link in the email is probably fine.

[ownagefool]

It's pretty much a fix for squatting.

You get a fair bit of defense for it around here, but ultimatly it's just rent seeking. Keeping younger generations out from having decent name just because you arrived earlier doesn't really promote a healthy web, nor provide real economic value.

Of course, most squatters would respond "I was planning on using that domain", so it's easier politically to just flood us with new ones.

My company name is squatted on several tlds ( by different people, obviously no intention to use them ). The .com owner wanted to charge me $40,000 or $1000 p/m. Fuck that. I used an alt tld.

[Faark]

> domains can look like anything

The funny part is ads having to add the "www." part, again, instead of just "word.[recognizableTLD]".

[journalctl]

You could always be sent to a sketchy .com domain too. You can still register googlemailsender.com and scam unsuspecting people; that hasn’t changed.

[grenoire]

There's a requirements list, by the way:

"That means that all .new domains registrations must:

- Be used for action generation or online content creation;

- Take the user directly into the action generation or content creation flow;

- Resolve to the action within 100 days of registration;* and

- Allow Google Registry to verify compliance at no cost."

[profmonocle]

Amusingly, they list these requirements on "whats.net" - a site which clearly violates these rules.

[65934]

checked link.new which is owned by bitly, it goes to bitly sign up page instead of link shortener. This is bad

[mustntmumble]

I'm wondering how that would work for an online shop. Lets say I went to amazon.new - what should I expect to see?

Maybe a new empty shopping cart?

Or a list of new products that have just been added to the store?

I think new products would be most intuitive for a shop.new domain...

[iainmerrick]

Certainly sounds like an analytics goldmine.

[sdan]

Been using https://docs.new for the past 2-3 months.

It's absolutely game-changing as I'm writing a bunch of stories and need to iterate fast and recompile my thoughts just by typing in 8 characters.

[DJHenk]

> It's absolutely game-changing as I'm writing a bunch of stories and need to iterate fast and recompile my thoughts just by typing in 8 characters.

Is it? Or are you being sarcastic? Every word processor/text editor that has ever existed on this planet has a shortcut for that. Every phone that is internet connected has a notes app only one click away and the option to 'share' whatever you wrote.

These cloud tools have only one appeal, easy synchronization, and for the rest a big list of drawbacks. As this 'revolutionary' (but still worse) functionality demonstrates.

[mkl]

If it's something I do frequently, my browser autocompletes an ordinary long URL after 1-2 characters. It doesn't seem very game-changing to have to type in a whole short URL instead. What am I missing?

[nilsandrey]

I'm using with some friends a thing like that...https://telegra.ph/ The only problem is if you don't access from Telegram then it's accessible for editing just in the authoring device. The good thing for some people is that is very useful for tethered connections.

[ChrisGranger]

The singular version works, too. https://doc.new

[jiveturkey]

huh. the sunrise period has only been 2 weeks so far. how did this exist for 2-3 months? that's unfair.

[ocdtrekkie]

It's so unfortunate that an idea like this is completely spoiled by who gets what term going to the highest bidder instead of to the services you personally use.

docs.new doesn't do me any good if I use a competing product to Google Docs. Similarly, I might want to use playlist.new without Spotify.

Sure, these are just domains, but it really sours this weird use of this tld as a "way to do things" that it's set to specific companies' services.

[wdfx]

The registration site had better be at Https://new.new

[jedimastert]

That domain appears to not be registered

[hn_throwaway_99]

So Google wants to get into the "AOL keywords" business. Just like bell-bottoms, everything comes around again after 20ish years.

[twodave]

It's like they're trying to turn the address bar into a terminal. I really don't get it.

[shpx]

The address bar is a thousand times cooler than my terminal because it understands English and does package management automatically, often in under a second.

I just wish it could convert files.

[ben_jones]

They're trying to make some extra $$$ before Chrome starts hiding the TLD for user convenience

[londons_explore]

This certainly rings bells of AOL keywords...

http://repo.new/ goes to github... sorry gitlab - you lose this round.

[JMTQp8lwXL]

$452 per year on Gandi (I queried two-letter names up to a dozen; they were all the same price). I get there is some cost to enforcing the intent of the TLD, but that seems rather high to query a domain and check. It should take all but a few minutes.

[EGreg]

Wouldn’t it be so much better if domains were specified the other way?

new.github.repo

It makes more sense and sounds better in most languages too

Although from the point of view of HTTP we already have verbs for that. It should really be

POST github/repo

Or maybe in user friendly display:

new github/repo

I guess maybe usa.github and in.github can be different domains because different organizations may have same name in diff countries

Treating a TLD as a verb is just silly. It comes at the end of the sentence...

Also it encourages stuff like repo.new to be owned by only one company - github - but what about atlassian butbucket etc?

Better to just have decreasing specificity. Like you have after the slash!

[joshstrange]

This seems rather... useless. I've bought a few tld's mainly in just a land-grab/cover-my-bases fashion but by and large they are all useless. Every bit of traffic is coming from HN/Twitter/FB/Google. The direct traffic is low enough that it's probably coming from either me. It doesn't matter if I have an .co/.io/.com/.dev they are all the same at the end of the day.

These new TLD's strike me as just a money grab before some people realize a domain name matters FAR less than most people thing.

Maybe I'm just not the target audience but I don't ever see myself typing "gist.new" into my address bar. Anyone who knows what a gist is is going to go to github and if you don't know what a gist is then you aren't going to know to type "gist.new" into the address bar.

[ben509]

The new TLDs are very much selling as a branding thing. How business owners value marketing and branding is very hard to understand.

On a practical note, if you are gunning for a promotion, setting up "widget.new" would make for a cool demo for management.

[cyborgx7]

Google is trying to be the central authority on what the central authority to do a thing is. Probably a good business move but it creeps me out.

[g105b]

Since when is an arbitrary cross-origin domain name a valid user interface choice?

From a security standpoint, using the _path_ of a trusted domain is still a thousand times more secure and convenient, rather than navigating to another arbitrary domain name with no validation of whether it is affiliated with the domain where you've come from.

If Google push this sort of mechanism, it's opening up a whole load of fraud capabilities! If I'm on gmail and receive a phishing attack email, tricking me into navigating to "gmail.new" which asks for my google password, should I type it into the box? There is a green padlock in the URL so it must be fine.

[frumiousirc]

On FF+uMatrix, a popup that won't go away shows this "exciting" message:

    [[domainSearchCtrl.getMessage('How exciting! {domain} is available.')]] 

I think I'll not whitelist anything.