ICANN Reveals the New gTLDs
Call it what you want, a giant boondoggle or the greatest thing to happen to commerce since money, but the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has revealed the applications for the new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD). These aren’t your COMs and NETs from way back in 2011, but the .COKE and .FATBABY […]
Call it what you want, a giant boondoggle or the greatest thing to happen to commerce since money, but the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has revealed the applications for the new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD). These aren’t your COMs and NETs from way back in 2011, but the .COKE and .FATBABY or whatever you can conjure and afford.
There were some surprises, like the multitude of companies going after .APP does not include Apple, Inc., and Google went bonkers, applying for more than 100 new domain extensions.
![googles gtld bid google's new gtld bid](https://blog.name.tools/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/googles-gtld-bid.png)
For anyone whose like, “What?” The new gTLD came about when ICANN opened up the door to any word in all kinds of languages to live on the right of the dot. If Google gets .LOL, for example, they’ll sell it like a traditional registry, just as Verisign does COM/NET/TV.
It’s a pricey venture. ICANN will take in about $357,000,000 for the $185,000 per application. So, yes, Google has dropped a small country’s GDP applying for new gTLDs.
Now it gets exciting. With some domain extensions like .GROCERY a hot item, you’ll probably see bidding wars between the likes of Wal-mart and Safeway. Although it’s not just the big boys who get to offer input. ICANN has opened up a 60-day comment period where the public can submit comments on the newly revealed applications.
ICANN also offers these stats:
Of the 1,930 applications received:
- 66 are geographic name applications.
- 116 applications are for Internationalized Domain Names, or IDNs, for strings in scripts such as Arabic, Chinese, and Cyrillic.
Applications were received from 60 countries and territories, broken down by ICANN’s geographic regions;
- 911 from North America.
- 675 from Europe.
- 303 are from Asia-Pacific.
- 24 from Latin America and the Caribbean.
- 17 from Africa.
As for Name.com, we need to wait for the domains to be approved, and then we’ll offer as many as we can get. There will be a lot that goes into this process, like an entire new infrastructure for domain registries and registrars (like us.) With that kind of excitement (read: fevered work) we’ll be keeping you posted on all the new updates as the come in.