Don’t Let Plural and Singular New TLDs Get You Down

Car. Cars.

The last time you were visually confused by these two words was probably first grade, but a lot of experts are concerned that in the context of TLDs, you’ll be confused. They’ve got a point. Before you balk, take a look at this:

• car.cars, cars.car, cars.auto, car.auto, auto.car, autos.car, autos.cars, cars.autos, car.auto.

The above are all possible domain names, if .auto, .car, .cars, and .autos all launch. Confusing, right? Particularly if you’re trying to remember which one your friend told you is the absolutely, undeniably, hands-down most bitchin’ site to buy a car on. You’ll be wishing you wrote that one down.

Ever since the ICANN String Similarity Independent Panel issued their final say on singular and plural domains, deciding that both were ultimately permissible, there’s been a lot of worry in the domain industry. At the Beijing conference early April, the GAC brought up the concern with ICANN and requested that ICANN reconsider their position. Since ICANN uses an Independent Panel to excuse themselves from possibly biased decisions, they stated that at this time they’d defer to that panel.

So what should you do? How can you protect yourself from confusion madness?

Relax.

Put on a Bob Marley song, or whatever works for you (we don’t judge), and take a deep breath. Five reasons not to worry:

1. This isn’t the first time confusion could have occurred with TLDs. Take .biz and .bz, or .co and .com, or the multi-uses of ccTLDs, like .me, which is both the ccTLD for Montenegro and a personal website TLD option. These are potentially confusing, and yet they exist peacefully.
2. Sure car.cars and cars.car are super-confusing. Which is why, as a brand owner, you would never register these sites, unless you were just trying to land traffic. It’s why car manufacturers don’t name their cars “car” and their dealerships “cars.” Impala.cars and Impala.car will probably both be registered by Chevy, the trademark owner – and they’ll probably lead to the same place.
3. One registry may fail. But these applicants knew going in that each proposed gTLD was a risk, and many went with plurals right of the bat. Why? Variety. And variety is the spice of capitalism. The market seems to always figure out how much it can take. While .car might be registered mostly by a few large-scale dealerships, .cars might end up being a desired registry for blogs, forums, and other small-scale webpages, and at that point both TLDs are discernible.
4. You are not going to have to register your company in each possible TLD. We know many of you are small business owners and purse strings are tight. Owning several domains has always been a part of your business plan, and you may decide to select a market-specific TLD, but you don’t have to. Registering your trademark in the Clearinghouse will help keep you protected, but it’s not even possible now to register every possible TLD. And that’s okay. When’s the last time you landed on the wrong page via a typo and thought, “Hey! I’ll just shop on this shitty site instead of the cool one I really wanted?” Never. Neither will your customers. Get the ones you really want, keep your eye on the TMCH, and move on.
5. There’s going to be so much room on the Web. And you get to be a part of that. Do you want to add a page detailing your promotions? Use a .PROMO. Want to start a new blog about beer? Use .BEER. It’s possible to stretch your legs and find your own piece of the Net.

Here’s the main thing: ICANN already has a bunch of rules. 338 pages worth, to be exact. And there are checks and balances, as well as a multi-stakeholder approach, meant to rule out any mistakes. Not everything can be delegated, though, and not every mistake can be avoided. It’s just like government – too little rules, chaos; too many rules, not enough freedom. And every market needs freedom because every market needs competition and choices.

Rule out plurals, and ICANN rules out plurals in other languages, in which visual similarity may not even be an issue. Rule out words with one letter difference, and .shop and .show might not make it. Eventually, it’s up to you, the consumer, to decide what lasts and what goes the way of the wagon. We trust you.