Probably not, thinks Centraal Corp., a company that wants to standardize the way names for Web addresses, domains, and other identifiers on the Net are chosen. Centraal announced Tuesday its initiative for standardizing Web naming, dubbed Human Friendly Identifiers, at the annual Fall Internet World trade show in New York City. In order to maintain a consistent and simple way for end users to navigate the Web, the company said, such a standard is critical for developers of browsers, search services, Internet directories, user tools, and other applications. Centraal was one of the first companies to create an alternative, keyword-based mechanism for visiting Web sites.
Web surfers can then use the keywords to get to sites instead of longer, more arcane Web addresses.
Netscape has debuted its own version of the service in the beta versions of its latest browser software. The use of keywords by Netscape's software resulted in controversy over whether keywords should take precedence over traditional Internet domain names. Centraal has also submitted two proposals for the naming scheme to the Internet Engineering Task Force . One of the proposals was created by Centraal and the other by Network Solutions, the longtime registrar of Internet domain names. Centraal also established a new Technology Advisory Board for Internet naming.