Why ICANN is becoming irrelevant
I first noticed this on Orange’s “I am” radio ads last year, but it’s become increasingly more prevalent.
I still remember the first time I saw the URL on a TV advert (it was for Ford, incidentally, possibly the Mondeo). Now, we’re seeing the death of URLs—or more accurately, hostnames.
Instead of plastering “www.example.com” over an advert, it seems advertisers are instead writing “Search online for ‘example’”.
While possibly more error-prone, ordinary Joe the Surfer never bothers with URLs, except to type them into Google’s search box. Seriously, a lot of people don’t actually know what URLs are (even fewer know what they’re called). People find stuff online by searching for it, more often than not.
This is, of course, why extended validation certificates are a good idea, even if they cost far too much for most site owners. In all honesty, I believe that every site should be served over SSL, but there are practical problems with this: it’d require a wholesale migration to IPv6—no bad thing, but not going to happen overnight—and there are good reasons why some sites don’t want to clearly demonstrate the names of the people behind them to the world and have to prove legitimacy to some certification authority. The whole hierarchical certification model is pretty broken, but a passive replacement isn’t particularly forthcoming. I have no idea what the answer is to that, but I do know it’s going to become necessary sooner rather than later: people already pay zero attention to what’s in the address bar.
