Dear Carlton,

Neither the wired.com article and the domainwire.com article indicate that Google's move has anything to do with Domain names, but URLs.  The domain wire article makes this distinction. 

The following is a microsoft.com copied from a 2010 March facebook page.  In the past a similar domain name, if copied from google search was equally long and complicated. 

If Google's idea is to address the issue of URLs becoming "unintelligible strings of gibberish combining components from third parties... and redirect schemes", then the focus needs to be on removing the tracking information by resisting the tendency to append or prefix google.com / facebook.com / twitter.com to the native URL;  The other step needed is to collaborate with w3c and all other private and institutional developers to develop standards for making deeper level URLs (inner page URLs) more legible. twitter.com/carlon is legible, but twitter.com/TWth4CD57YNQI2ZBzuRdNs3vg is gibberish. In most cases, the page URLs are automatically assigned by the Web authoring software.  

The mobile app environment unwittingly seemed to de-emphasize Domain Names; some users also began to consider domain names as less important if you learn how to search. But the importance of Domain names remain unchanged.  With domain names, the pointer control stays with the user, but with reduced emphasis on domain name, the control for the pointer shifts to the search engine or the mobile application.  

Sivasubramanian M