5 August 2001, 14:43 GMT

Using the time-honoured sales technique of first creating a need, then fulfilling that need, .biz resellers have invested thousands of man-hours trying to convince companies that the current, infinite .com namespace simply is not enough.

Due to go "live" in October, desperate .biz resellers have begun ramping up their sales patter to try and convince increasingly confused managers that their newly acquired .com domain just no longer cuts the cake.

"The .Com top-level domain is becoming too crowded," they insist. "For example, McDonalds the greasy burger joint and McDonald the Scottish Aberdeen Angus farmer cannot co-exist in the same namespace (even though their businesses are strangely complimentary)."

They insist that both will want to use mcdonalds.com, and simply extending the name to mcdonalds-farmer.com is not enough.

"No-one will ever guess that," the resellers insisted last Thursday. "People just want to type the domain name straight into their browser and have the correct website appear." Of course they failed to mention that people will still try the .com version first and get the wrong site. And strangely, they forgot to say anything about search engines being most peoples' first port of call when trying to find a particular website. Plus of course they also neglected to mention that the British company should be using mcdonalds-farmer.co.uk anyway, not .com.

And another thing... At least .com is actually short for something. What's .biz short for? Bizness?

The answer to this madness is of course simply not to be duped. You already have your .com domain name. Why shell out more money for a meaningless .biz? You don't have to, and you shouldn't have to. After .biz, what next? .cmz for commerce? .bar for barter? .ind for industry? .trd for trade? .fbp for financial business portfolio?

Stand your ground now, or have your wallet forever milked for new and totally unnecessary domain names.

Elsewhere - Other Sites and Things:

MacDonalds Ranch - www.macdonaldsranch.com
There ya go, simple as that. An infinite namespace whose precious resources will last our little planet forever...

McDonalds Rentacar - www.mcdonaldsrentacar.co.nz/
Perfect! If you happen to be in New Zealand, rent a car from these people - they understand the Web much more than those .biz sharks ever will.

ComputerWorld story
The dreaded roll-out of .biz and .info top-level domain suffixes begins.

AllDomains.com
.biz is here!! Somebody hold me back, I gotta get me a .biz right now..!!

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