Dot-shop: Is it just a dot-con?

Having a limit on the number of top level domains may have been inconvenient, but it certainly was fun. It was one of the most reliable sources of weirdness on the web.

Who'd have thought that the GNP of Tuvalu, a tiny pacific kingdom reliant almost totally on selling colourful stamps, would receive an unexpected boost from television companies looking for funky dot-tv web addresses?

Well, that looks like it's all about to end because new.net has set up a whole stack of very uninternet-style domains like dot-shop, dot-xxx, dot-ltd and dot-game.

Tuvalu doesn't need to go cap in hand to the World Bank quite yet, though, because it's not quite certain whether the new addresses are 'real' or not.

Everyone's been expecting these new addresses for a while. But Icann, who has been talking about setting these new addresses up for years, dragged its feet for so long that someone went ahead and did it anyway.

New.net claims it has had so much demand its server crashed, but that doesn't mean the new names will necessarily catch on. You have to update your browser to recognise the new domains, or use an ISP who recognises new.net's net names.

So don't go advertising your internet address as "www.corner.shop" just yet. Most punters will type it in, get the "this page cannot be displayed" sign, and go and take their custom elsewhere.

The potential chaos this may cause is awesome. If they're not genuine addresses, what happens to people who spent $25 on a new.net domain name when Icann launches the official ones?

If they aren't legit, does that mean that the old rules about cybersquatting apply? This could open up a whole new continent to the people who spent their leisure time defaming large software companies.

But there is one set of people who are bound to benefit from this - it's just a shame new.net didn't set up "dot-lawyer" domain for them.