What are these new names and when will they arrive?

The suffix at the end of a website is called a “top level domain,” or TLD. Right now there are about a dozen top level names like “.com” or “.biz” plus other all the ones reserved for countries like “.ca” for Canada or “.jp” for Japan. Now, hundreds of more TLD’s like “.lol” and “.apple” are set to be live by early next year. The complete list of names and their would-be owners was posted for the first time today and can be found here.

Who will own the new names?

In some cases, familiar companies like Google and Amazon have applied to own the names. In most cases, it’s companies you haven’t heard that want to make money selling websites  (for instance, the owner of “.dogs” could sell names like “www.rover.dogs” and “www.lassie.dogs”).

So all these companies are now going to run the internet?

Not exactly. Running a top level domain registry is an expensive and complicated affair. While some big technology firms like Apple might be up to the task, most companies are not. They will instead decide to outsource that part of it to existing registries and focus instead on the business of selling websites.

How does a company get a TLD in the first place?

The applicants paid a non-refundable $185,000 application fee to request a name. If they can show that they have the qualifications to do the job, they will likely get it. They will then have to pay an annual fee of at least $25,000 to keep it.

What if more than one company wants the same name?

This is an issue. Today’s list reveals that 11 companies applied for “.app”, nine applied for “.art”, seven for “.news” and so on (see here for most popular names). When there are multiple applications for a name, the companies that meet the technical qualifications will have an auction to determine who gets to own it.

What happens now that the names have been announced?

There will be a sixty-day period for the public to comment. According to trademark lawyer Joanne Ludovici-Lint of McDermott Will & Emery, companies will then have seven months to bring formal objections to any of the proposed names. Disputes will be resolved by ICANN (see below) and the World Intellectual Property Office, which are the same bodies that resolve disputes over website ownership.

Why do we have all these new names in the first place?

This was ICANN’s idea. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a non-profit agency located in Los Angeles that oversees internet names and addresses. Over the last decade, it added new TLDs such as “.jobs” and “.coop” and then decided to make the number of TLD’s essentially limitless.

Why is there a controversy over the new names?

Critics say it will lead to a new flood of cyber-squatting. Brand owners are already upset with ICANN for creating new TLD’s like “.pro” or “.travel” that they don’t want or need. In the case of last year’s “.xxx”, for instance, major companies across America called the scheme a “shakedown” and “extortion” because they felt forced to buy up the names before a squatter did. The arrival of hundreds or thousands of new names will exacerbate the problem. “Father of the internet” Vint Cerf has also expressed skepticism, recently telling a Dutch newspaper (translation):

“Hundreds of new brands and generic names to add now? I see no benefit in that. Many companies fear that they will soon must follow hundreds of new Internet extensions to ensure that their names never be abused. They have a point.”

So who does ICANN report to?

The body was once overseen by the U.S. Department of Commerce but in 2006 it signed an agreement that made it autonomous. It now professes allegiance to a “multi-staker model” but in reality appears to be accountable to no one at all. As this devastating article by a Wired editor recounts, former members of ICANN have engaged in a brazen act of self-dealing by creating the scheme to sell the names and then turning around and offering registry and consulting services (a trademark lawyers says today’s list shows that a company owned by the former ICANN chair has filed the third most applications). ICANN has also ignored requests by companies to create a “defensive registry” that allow them to protect their names and is planning to use half of the hundreds of millions of fees it is collecting to fund a legal war-chest.

(Image by Anna Omelchenko via Shutterstock)

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It appears that some of the names will be run by Google. In a blog post this afternoon, the company said it has applied to control not just “.google” or “.youtube” but a series of other names as well.

The search giant revealed that it has designs on names “related to its core business” like “.docs” as well as ones with “interesting and creative potential” like “.lol.”

What this means in practice is that sometime next year Google will be in a position to use and sell websites like, say, “catsonskateboards.youtube” or “antitrust.lol.”

Domains gone wild

Google is one of about 1,300 reported companies who are applying for the right to run domain name registries. Although the applications will be officially revealed next month, some of them like “.vegas” and “.rugby” have been named already. A company called Directi Group disclosed today that it has applied for .web, .bank, .loans, .insurance, .law, .shop, .app, .website, .click, .online, .music, .hotel .doctor, .baby and .shop.

ICANN has portrayed the domain names sales as a “land rush” but the process has been fiercely criticized by US companies who have described it instead as a “shakedown.” The companies complain they will be forced to shell out more money to buy the names before squatters do. Right now, many companies spend hundreds of dollars to defensively register domains they do not need like “.info”, “.biz” and “.xxx.”

The Association of National Advertisers has demanded ICANN create a “Do Not Sell” registry but the body has ignored the request. ICANN, whose former members have been accused of brazen self-dealing, will make hundreds of millions from the sales and plans to use half of it for a legal war-chest.

(Image by Andreas Meyer via Shutterstock)

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ICANN, the body charged with running the internet’s naming system, had to extend the overall process after an embarrassing glitch that revealed some of the confidential applications.

Applicants are paying $185,000 for the opportunity to sell new internet names that will become available in addition to familiar ones like “.com” or “.org.”

According to former Vice-Chair of ICANN’s Government Advisory Committee, Lena Carlsson, the applicants include financial and pharmaceutical brands who want to purchase their own names. She also said there are competing bids for names like “.eco” and “.green” and that there is interest from Asia in domains with non-Roman characters.

Carlsson, who is now a VP at a domain services business called MelbourneIT, says that “.vegas,” “london” and “.sydney” are also among the names to be revealed. She says there have been approximately 2,300 applications from about 1,300 participants.

A Shakedown

While ICANN has touted the name sales as a “land rush,” critics have slammed the agency for corruption and brazen self-dealing. (For more dirty details, see this account from a Wired editor).

They have pointed out that many of the companies that want to help inaugurate the new domains are run by former ICANN members and that the body has already pulled in more than $350 million in new fees. ICANN’s own documents show that it plans to use a good chunk of this for a legal war-chest to fight off objections to its cash grab.

Meanwhile, businesses that don’t want or need the new domain names complain that ICANN won’t heed their call to create a “do not sell” registry.

Businesses worry that the new names will increase brand-jacking and cyber-squatting — situations where opportunists and criminals effectively hold a company’s name at ransom unless they agree to buy it back (check out the Pinterest.org
page for instance).

In practice, the new names mean a company like Disney must worry not only about someone buying “Disney.pro” or “Disney.xxx” but also names like “deals.disney” or “disney.fun.” Businesses and trademark lawyers have said ICANN’s behavior is a shakedown and “extortion.”

In this light, the reportedly robust sales to financial firms may simply represent companies like BankofAmerica shelling out $185,000 to buy “.bankofamerica” before someone in Nigeria or Russia buys it instead.

[Corrections: An earlier version of this story mistakenly identified Lena Carlsson as a former ICANN board member; she was a former Vice-Chair of ICANN’s Government Advisory Committee. The story also understated the number of applications; there are approximately 2,300 not 1,300 reported applications.]

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