Usage Evolutions

Domain names are becoming obsolete

In the past, Internet users memorised domain names. They typed for example “www.my-store.com” into the browser’s address bar. Today, reaching a new service or site (assuming it is neither in the history nor in the bookmarks) goes through a search engine. The user types “my store” and clicks one of the results.

Domain names (which can be typed wrongly or hijacked), and routing (which reveals where a server sits physically), are weaknesses of today’s Internet. Doing without them means naming and retrieving data by a key that does not depend on where the data lives — and that key is not meant to be memorised.

Search engines have become essential

When the user types “store”, the search engine shows a list of results including “www.my-store.com” and “www.other-store.com”. It is free to put either one first. Users click the first link far more often than the ones below, so that choice matters a great deal. Search engines, however, use many criteria other than the user’s interest when ranking results.

In that setting, making room for a neutral search engine that does not reorder results according to advertising deals makes complete sense.