Consumer feedback suggests that future Internet will be ‘messy and confusing’, ‘too complex’ and ‘out of control’

The majority of consumers polled (60%) agree that the liberalisation of domain name extensions will change the way they use the Internet, but not for the better. The sceptical amongst them believe that the Internet will become full of pointless domain names (for 65% of the people polled), messy and confusing (57%), too complex to navigate (46%) and out of control (41%).

Consumers muster little enthusiasm for any new top-level domains. A quarter of people are ambivalent about the prospect of a .music suffix and 28% would be wary of domains ending with .theirprofession. Just 15% think this sort of suffix would be appealing. Consumers are most suspicious of extensions linked to porn and religion. A massive 84% of consumers think .sex is dodgy, and two thirds think .god is suspect.

One prospect that does interest consumers, however, is the opportunity that new suffixes present for building communities online. Of the consumers surveyed, 29% think the Internet will become localised, allowing cities and towns to create virtual spaces that promote the local area and that connect communities. e.g. .london, .football, .facebook, .myspace.

Another key finding from the report was that the Internet has become more socially orientated, with 46% of the consumers polled regularly using social networking tools such as Facebook and MySpace. But self-publishers are still in the monitory – with only 10% of people writing about themselves online via their own blogs, and 14% uploading pictures using sites such as Flickr. This will grow however, the new consumers born after 1990 are digital natives and the explosive growth of Twitter points the way towards emergence of self-publishing. Twenty percent of the consumers we polled between the ages of 18 and 29 say they write about themselves on blogs – compared to just 5% of people over 40 and 6% of people over 30.

Interview with Wendy Tan White - Gandi Marketing Director on the impact on consumers

At Gandi we believe that this could be a new opportunities for consumers and businesses with the increased choice of domain names, but if liberalisation is to bring the benefits that it promises, it needs to be handled carefully. There is a danger that squatters will take over the virtual high street and as soon as the criminals move in, you’ll see the overall web experience decline. As an ‘ethical’ registrar we really believe, all players in the domain space need to take a longer term, mature view of how they behave. This includes registrars and registries whose commercial interests sometimes conflict with the goal of keeping the domain space from being polluted, which in turn blights the consumer experience.

Download our guide for businesses on how to manage the changes as liberalisation occurs.