ABOUT DOT NAME

DNS Structure: New Top Level Domains
About Dot-Name
.name -- for individuals
.name is for for individuals and their personal web sites. It is run by Global Name Registry, a UK-based commercial company. This one serves a useful purpose, since the current domain structure offers no particular place for personal sites -- thus, of all the new TLDs, this one has the strongest justification on the basis of a strictly logical namespace. The structure of .name lets people register only third-level domains so that nobody can monopolize an entire surname; you have to get john.smith.name. For any domain suffix that's a complete English word, try actually reading a domain name under it out loud with the dots treated as spaces, and see if it makes a reasonable phrase. The current .net works pretty well; the domain ibm.net refers to the "IBM Net". The .info and .museum domains in this new plan also work; many likely names under them can be read out loud reasonably, like west-podunk.art.museum. On the other hand, "John Smith Name" sounds funny. Anyway, all domain names are names. Normally, the top-level domain gives some indication of what type of entity the name is for, like .com for commercial operations and .org for organizations. By that standard, the earlier-proposed .per for personal sites would make more sense.
This new domain still has great potential if it can be marketed well to the millions of Internet users who don't yet have personal domain names; there's a definite advantage to having one which you can use for your e-mail and Web address and keep from having it tied to your ISP, employment, geographical location, or other potentially changeable things. (Several recent cases of people being forced en masse to change their email addresses due to the corporate machinations of their ISPs add strength to this argument.)
The official site has some talk about how .name domains will somehow be used to let people make their personal information available to merchants and others needing it, but no details are given of how this is to be accomplished, and how security will be maintained for this.
The first batch of names were supposed to go live on December 13, 2001, with applications accepted until November 22, but the launch date was pushed to January 15, 2002 instead. It went live on schedule, and you can now look up the names in their WHOIS. Unfortunately, they were only processing updates of domain records (name servers, contacts, etc.) every two weeks along with new batches of names.
Although domain registrations in .name are done at the third level, the registry also made available email forwarding services at the second level. Technically this is a separate registration from the domain name, but some registrars provide this at no extra charge along with registration of a .name domain while others charge extra.