14 DAY TRIAL // The heavily criticized new generic top level domains are seeing their first victim, or maybe, their happy customer. Google has just announced that it has applied for several gTLDs, mostly related to its existing products. Several other companies have applied for gTLDs, the results will be announced in a couple of weeks by ICANN.
"In 2008, ICANN announced a program to expand the number of generic TLDs (think .com, .org, .edu), developed through its bottom-up, multi-stakeholder process, in which we participate. Given this expansion process, we decided to submit applications for new TLDs," Vint Cerf, noted for his contributions to the TCP/IP stack, announced on behalf of Google.
Vint Cerf is also Chairman of the Board of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN was the one that pushed for the new generic TLDs.
Here are some of the domains that Google applied for:
- Our trademarks, like .google; - Domains related to our core business, like .docs; - Domains that will improve user experience, such as .youtube, which can increase the ease with which YouTube channels and genres can be identified; - Domains we think have interesting and creative potential, such as .lol.
Google is said to have applied for some 50 TLDs so it will be interesting to see what it wants and what it got. It should be rather surprising if Google is denied any of its applications.
Simply applying for one of the new gTLDs costs $185,000, €149,000 and there's no guarantee that your application will be approved. This means that Google spent about $10 million, €8 million just applying for these domains.
It will spend several million more on yearly fees, just one domain could cost $1 million per year, depending on how many sites use it. ICANN has gotten more than 1,900 applications for new gTLDs, which generated some $350 million, €282 million in application fees alone.