recently the adeptly-named ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) proposed the creation of a .eco domain name.  the concept would be to reward organizations that meet certain environmentally-aware criteria with a .eco site.   potential visitors to such sites would be guaranteed to be supporting climate-friendly organizations.   interestingly, the two front runners to administer this ‘certification’ are Big Room Inc. (out of Vancouver!) and Dot Eco LLC (associated with Al Gore).   we can guess that support from the ‘father of the internet and contemporary american environmentalism’ will have some serious weight in the decision-making process, but it would be nice to see hometown heroes get a slice of the pie.   as a former LEED-consultant, I understand some of the controversy associated with eco certification and I am sure the .eco will be subject to more of the same; let us leave the eco-labelling controversy for now and turn elsewhere.

the .eco discussion made me think about .com.   I thought: ‘how cool would it be if .com was short for .community’.   this seemed likely, given the networked nature of the internet and the clear sociological links between the communal aspects of online life and sitting in the olden days village pub/square, listening and observing your village’s social life.   not to be.   the capitalist machine wins again:  .com stands for .commercial.

commercial evokes images of flickering product advertisements on television, consumers buying their life-goods, and bland glass-enclosed steel and concrete business districts.   this site describes other domain names including: .org (formally restricted to non-profits, now open to any individual or business), .net (formally restricted to technical concerns, namely web-providers), .biz (business only, I think of used-car salesmen when I see it), and a number of others.   the most interesting is the .coop (reserved for coops, although I have never seen one in use).

these are the most popular of the .somethings and all have become available to business.   does this make the fundamental purpose of the internet economic?  to me this is concerning in light of the essentially anti-community, rapine nature of the capitalist corporate model we live in today (maximize returns to shareholders while minimizing and externalizing costs to the surrounding environment).   what if .com stood for .community?  would this affect our perception of our communities, both virtual and real?

tangentially, this means the most popular ‘community-building’ website — FACEBOOK.com — is a business concern.    somehow it produces income for the venture capitalists invested in it.   is this a problem?   consider this: how would you feel if your real-life, community-centres were run as for-profit institutions?   they could never offer the same range of money-losing services: poorly attended yoga classes, low-income mum’s groups, or 2$ drop-in soccer.   every decision made by facebook must be put through a profit filter; does this make them a good forum for community building?   think on it before signing in and posting information about you and your real community.

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