Broadband Tech > Webhosting > ICANN snubs critics, opens domain extension floodgates

ICANN snubs critics, opens domain extension floodgates

quote:

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Buy .whatever-you-want for just $185,000

For a hefty $185,000 (£119,500) processing fee – a third of which will be dumped into ICANN's legal defence fund – any company or organisation in good standing can attempt to get its hands on a right-of-the-dot vanity address that will be the functional equivalent of .com or .uk.

Domain name registry service providers currently expect ICANN to receive between 1,000 and 1,500 applications, about two-thirds of which will be for so-called "dot-brand" gTLDs. So far only a handful of companies have announced their intention to apply for a dot-brand, among them are Hitachi (.hitachi), Canon (.canon) and Deloitte (.deloitte).

Geographic gTLDs are expected to account for about one in 10 applications, according to ARI Registry Services, a domain services provider. Many major cities – including London, New York, Berlin, Paris and Las Vegas – have already announced their intention to apply for "dot-city" domains.

There are also expected to be hundreds of examples of gTLDs related to specific niche industries – .wine and .jewelers have already been proposed – as well as mass-appeal strings such as .blog, .web, .music and .sport.

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This is almost the same as the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

IMO, it's a BAD idea.

reply to Stem Bolt
yeap, bad idea.
How are folks actually going to remember the site's address? Was it widget.com, or widget.xyz, or....?
So they'll just rely more on search engines, which is fine I guess, but then counters the whole point of having a vanity URL.
And what about all the companies that have to protect their trademarks? Suddenly just maintaining the list of all possible domains for their company and products is going to cost thousands a year.
Ridiculous.
KM
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Don't Lie - Be Kind - Realize your Potential

reply to Stem Bolt
Has ICANN sold themselves out?