The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is looking to expand its top level domains (TLD), and companies have begun pitching suggestions and applying to have their companies turned into brand new TLDs. Companies like Google (.android, .youtube, .search, .play, and .page) and Amazon, as well as many others – 1930 applications have been filed – have been looking to be included in the expansion. Apple has applied for a .apple TLD.
Many of the 1,930 proposals were duplicates. Suffixes in contention are likely to include “.bank,” ”.secure” and “.web.” ICANN is encouraging competing bidders to work out an agreement. The organization will hold an auction if the parties fail to reach a compromise. Of the 1,930 proposals, 751 were for 230 different suffixes, while the remaining 1,179 were unique. That means there were 1,409 distinct suffixes proposed.
If Apple is successful, we’ll probably find ourselves owning .ME, .Mac, and .Apple email addresses at some point. Think you have too many Apple ID’s now? Just wait, you’ll have one more to add to your growing list.
Thinking about proposing your own TLD? Proposals cost $185,000 each, which may seem like grand larceny, but when you factor in how much money a company could make by selling the custom TLD URLs to consumers, many stand to make millions from the sale of these custom domain names.
ICANN expects that it will take upwards of two years before the proposals are sorted out and the first new TLDs find their way onto the web.
Confused? TLDs are the endings to the URLs you’ve grown to love over the years. Examples include .com, .net, .org, and .edu.
