[jerf]

"Is that monopolistic behaviour?"

No. Acquiring the TLD has nothing to do with any monopoly, so it's just a browser decision made by Chrome, and it isn't locking anybody out of any markets.

It's also technically not even a change to the status quo. Beforehand, you weren't supposed to be using .dev like that. As the article says, you should have been using .test or .invalid. After Google's actions, you still shouldn't have been using .dev and should have been using .test or .invalid. You can't hear my tone, but I don't mean that in the imperative or angry; we've pretty much all screwed that up at some point. But a screw-up it was.

[peterwwillis]

It's locking literally every individual and business out of a "development" domain, solely for one corporation's for-profit use. Solely to associate Google with development, over any other corporation in the world.

This is like Ford registering ".car" gTLD for themselves (although actually worse).

> It's also technically not even a change to the status quo.

If it wasn't a change to the status quo, they would have just used the exact same test domains you mention. You're saying that what we should not have done, is okay for Google to do.

[SAI_Peregrinus]

> You're saying that what we should not have done, is okay for Google to do.

No, what we should not have done is used an unregistered and unreserved TLD for testing/development. What Google has done is registered the .dev TLD, and started to use it for development.

[peterwwillis]

They were already using it for development. Just like everyone else. They "officially" took it away from everyone else, and then forced it to be TLS-only.

This is the internet development equivalent of the copyrighting of the song "Happy Birthday to You".

[mindcrime]

It's locking literally every individual and business out of a "development" domain, solely for one corporation's for-profit use.

And? What entitles any of us to use that domain? And as far as that goes, you can, as I understand it, still use that tld, since your local DNS resolver or hosts file can always override how hosts are resolved in there. The only real issue is if you hit the specific issue where a change in Chrome behaviour w/r/t this specific TLD, breaks something in your workflow.

[peterwwillis]

> What entitles any of us to use that domain?

You're right. I didn't pay for it, so I'm not entitled to get to use it.

Just because there is only one internet, and only one top level domain namespace, and just because I don't have $150,000, does not entitle me to get to use some part of the internet in the same way as a single corporation with a lot of money.

What entitles anyone to use the internet? I don't pay for the root name servers. I don't pay for peering transit. I don't pay for core routers.

I guess your point must be that corporations [and nations] should use their money and influence to acquire large chunks of the internet and screw with it in any way that they possibly can. And we should not care, because we are not entitled to it.

[mindcrime]

You're right. I didn't pay for it, so I'm not entitled to get to use it.

Correct. So what was the point of the rest of your nonsensical rambling? Or do you have some other explanation of why you're entitled to you use that specific tld namespace? You can't just use arbitrary domains that you don't own, why should tld's be any different especially given the advent of gtld's which radically expanded the namespace?

You're also ignoring that that that you can still use .dev. The case where Google's ownership of it prevents you from using it (for internal use anyway) is a very specific, limited scenario.

does not entitle me to get to use some part of the internet in the same way as a single corporation with a lot of money

Nothing about this prevents you from using any part of the Internet. At worst it restricts, ever so slightly, the way you can name your resources. But there have always been restrictions on how you can name your resources.

[peterwwillis]

The taking of a gTLD for private use simply to associate an entire generic concept with a single corporation is an abuse of the public's interest in top-level domains to be used to navigate resource on the world wide web.

The Chairman of ICANN said at the creation of gTLDs: "Today's decision will usher in a new internet age. We have provided a platform for the next generation of creativity and inspiration. Unless there is a good reason to restrain it, innovation should be allowed to run free."

Taking the entire ".DEV" TLD for a single corporation, as if Google is the only development corporation in the world, is not providing a platform for the next generation of creativity and inspiration. Potentially millions of users of this TLD no longer have the option.

I am not the only person who feels this way: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/13/google_developer_gt...

Google also tried to take ".BLOG", for sole use by its Blogger platform. Luckily they were outbid.

When Amazon proposed it taking the ".BOOK" TLD, publishers objected because, duh, this would be a hugely unfair attack on book publishers, sellers, and authors.

On top of the above, Google broke private use of the TLD for literally everyone who wasn't using TLS (and not just for domains Google registers in the TLD), but I'm sure lots of people simply don't care when Google does dick things, so nevermind that.

My position is that a corporation should not be able to stifle free and fair use of the internet. It's not about entitlement, it's about the fact that the internet is a global economic engine intended to be used by everyone, and not just exclusive corporations with money and influence.

[jerf]

"It's locking literally every individual and business out of a "development" domain, solely for one corporation's for-profit use. Solely to associate Google with development, over any other corporation in the world."

You have answered the question "Was this selfish behavior?" or "Was this an asshole move?", with an answer I agree with. But that was not the question. The question was whether this was monopolistic behavior. The answer is no. As far as I know, several other TLDs have been similarly locked down by companies with no claim to monopoly power in any industry, which pretty much proves it's not related to monopoly power.