An expansion of addresses available in the Internet has been approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Although this has not been implemented yet the idea is to approve the use of other extensions besides the typical .com, .org or .net. This means that if I want to put .sophia or .mygrandothersnameisMary, I will be able to do so!!
This of course has brought a huge controversy.
On the one hand, it is a positive motion since nowadays it is hard to find a good domain for a new entrepreneur since most of the good names have been taken. This could also lead to innovations in online marketing, since powerful names such as whatsfor.dinner (quoted in the NY Times) can easily be remembered by Internet users.
But, on the other hand, critics say that there are already sufficient choices and that there is no need for this expansion. As well they argue this could lead to the old “war of domains” we’ve experienced in the past. This war consisted of people buying domains with trademarks and then selling them to corporate businesses. This lead to intellectual property abuses which critics don’t want to experience again. Anyway, many measures have been created to avoid these abuses. For instance, corporate businesses can claim the names of their addresses before the rollout period. As well, these addresses cost as much as $185,000 with a $25,000 annual fee.
Anyway, since this new motion would open the doors to endless addresses I believe there are many factors which we are not able to predict. For instance, big players need to stay alert since new domains will probably lead to great confusion!
2 comments:
Yet another money making scheme is invented !! ICANN will get registration fees for all these new names, so of course they love they idea. They earn from the application fees, annual fees and a registration fee every year that a domain is registered.
From a user’s perspective, does this really add value? One could argue that it can add value, as mega brands could have their own extensions, like sneakers.nike. But I am not convinced that it any better than sneakers.nike.com. At least from a consumers point of view, if you have sneakers.nike.co.uk you know (in theory at least) what country the site is targeting.
Let’s not forget the useless extensions which will come out of this, probably something like .couk, so domain squatters can benefit from people who mistyped .co.uk. I might be pessimistic, but just look at the recent launch of .cm and how there was hype all over the internet that you could benefit from typo traffic if you could get the .cm equivalent of a high trafficked website. The .cm domains sell for about $100 each, so the registrars weren’t complaining.
Lastly from a businesses’ point of view there could be a benefit.With alternative extensions to choose from, you would have a greater chance of finding that perfect domain. But don’t forget that people are most used to .com, or their local country extension, so you would need a strong brand to make them remember it’s not dot COM. For existing business this is just another expense they need to incur as they would want to protect their brand, so they would be essentially forced to buy yet another useless domain, to redirect to their primary name.
Perhaps ICANN and the other registry bodies could better spend their time regulating the existing domains they issue. That way we could see less high quality domains (.com’s) pointing to domain parking pages full of ads and actually have services which add value to the internet!
Agree with you Sam. Indeed it is a way to make more money by selling intangible names that exist no where. It seems like we are getting into a virtual world where things that don't exist value more. A traditional business man will never invest 185K in purchase of those domain names but tech companies will never let anyone else buy their goodwill. so companies like apple, Microsoft, Google, yahoo and many other have no choice but to buy multiple domains like these to secure their brands and identities.
As Craig from eConsultancy mentioned that we will be facing a challenge of to much information and data available, it will be hard to identify the relevant information. The same problem will arise when we will have 1000 plus new domain extensions to choose from.
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