{"id":1383,"date":"2002-01-15T09:43:48","date_gmt":"2002-01-15T14:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=1383"},"modified":"2002-01-15T09:43:48","modified_gmt":"2002-01-15T14:43:48","slug":"the_law_of_unin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/01\/15\/the_law_of_unin.html","title":{"rendered":"The Law of Unintended Consequences"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Law so cited states that when you do something, particularly something significant, there will be outcomes and side effects and results that nobody, not even you, guessed, let alone intended.<\/p>\n

One writer speculates<\/a> that the slow-down in domain registrations comes from the success of Google<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The most interesting from a domain-name point of view is this: With the rise of search tools that unerringly bring you to the page you want, the need for a highly specific domain name — one that a casual Web user would be able to guess — has practically disappeared.<\/p>\n

While he gives some good examples, I can confirm this through my own experience.<\/p>\n

I was trying to find the site for Guardians of Order (the publishers of Big Eyes, Small Mouth,<\/i> which is another story<\/a>). <\/p>\n

But where to look? www.guardiansoforder.com<\/i>? Or .net? Maybe it’s hyphenated, www.guardians-of-order.com<\/i>. Or maybe they used their acronym, for www.goo.com<\/i>.<\/p>\n

In the end, I simply looked them up in Google — and found it was www.guardiansorder.com<\/i><\/a> (or, more formally, www.guardiansorder.on.ca<\/i><\/a>).<\/p>\n

Locking up a basic domain name is useful — it provides corporate identity better than www.sitehost.com\/xY12rt5<\/i> would. And it’s probably useful to some degree to lock up some of the major possible alternatives so that people don’t get too confused if they do<\/i> find the other location (there’s at least one site I visited frequently a year or two back that was supposed to be .net<\/i>, since the .com<\/i> version was a completely different company).<\/p>\n

But by and large, it’s no longer seen as necessary to lock up every single variation of the name, just in case people start trying to type in addresses, any more than every auto shop needs to name themselves something like “Main Street Auto Repair” so that people will know how to get there.<\/p>\n

Interesting stuff.<\/p>\n

(Via Boing Boing<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Law so cited states that when you do something, particularly something significant, there will be outcomes and side effects and results that nobody, not even you, guessed, let alone…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hi-tech"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":129500,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/15\/in-a-world-where-us-copyright-law-wasnt-changed-in-1976.html","url_meta":{"origin":1383,"position":0},"title":"In a world where US copyright law wasn't changed in 1976","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 15-Jan-16 6:14pm","format":false,"excerpt":"... we in the US would have seen creative works (books, movies, even scientific papers and articles) from 1959 enter the public domain. Instead, they won't become available until 2055. Unless Disney (et al.) gets copyright extended again. Which, I'm sure, they are planning to before anything starts falling into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":136075,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/04\/08\/the-us-public-domain-floodgates-prepare-to-open.html","url_meta":{"origin":1383,"position":1},"title":"The US Public Domain floodgates prepare to open","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 8-Apr-18 7:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's hard to believe that the major media companies will actually let things start sliding into the public domain again on 1 January 2019. But is there any desire or will in Congress to protect Big Media right now? (This may be the sole tarnished silver lining of having the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/unnamed.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":27059,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/12\/no-copyright-try-trademark-protection-on-public-domain-works-instead.html","url_meta":{"origin":1383,"position":2},"title":"No copyright? Try trademark protection on public domain works instead!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 12-Mar-12 2:03pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I'll be very curious to see how ERB Inc.'s court case against Dynamite Comics goes. Dynamite says it's basing its \"John Carter\" and \"Tarzan\" comics on the characters and concepts of the portion of Burroughs' work already in public domain. ERB Inc. says poppycock, they have a trademark for those\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1972,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/04\/01\/the_evils_of_pr.html","url_meta":{"origin":1383,"position":3},"title":"The evils of profiling","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 1-Apr-02 9:41am","format":false,"excerpt":"No, I'm not talking about racial profiling or other law enforcement debates. I'm talking about the problems that occur when I note to our tech guys that I don't seem...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24991,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/01\/the-public-domain.html","url_meta":{"origin":1383,"position":4},"title":"The Public Domain","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 1-Jan-12 10:25am","format":false,"excerpt":"... in the US isn't growing much, largely because so many copyright holders (Disney being among the most famous) keep twisting Congress' arms to keep extending copyright. So here are some works, under the law until the late 70s could have entered the Public Domain today, meaning that they could\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32776,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/13\/the-case-of-the-curious-copyrights.html","url_meta":{"origin":1383,"position":5},"title":"The Case of the Curious Copyrights","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 13-Mar-13 3:02pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Complexity in US copyright law is bad enough. Compound it with territorial application by each nation, and it becomes nightmarish.There are occasional efforts to make copyright laws match across countries, but (a) the motivations behind copyright in each country vary, and (b) the efforts are almost always driven by Big\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}