ICANN Reveals New TLD Application List

Eighteen months after first announcing expansion of the TLD space, ICANN has published the list of new gTLDs that have been applied for. A cursory glance reveals that.app was pretty popular, with 13 applications. Now begins the seven month objection period (but you have to be a large organization to lodge any). angry tapir writes in with info on how duplicate applications will be resolved. From the article: "The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has released statistics about the applications for new top-level domains — so-called 'dot word' domains along the lines of .web and .bank ... Two hundred and thirty of the domains proposed by applicants will become the subject of ICANN's dispute resolution process — which involves an attempt among applicants for the same domain to come to a joint arrangement, followed by an auction if that's unsuccessful. There were 751 conflicting applications for domains in total, which in many cases are likely to involve generic suffixes like .secure."

Comments

Useful change

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand the DNS system and how the new TLDs work but how will a normal user react when the will be told to go to http://apple.app/ or http://android.app/.
Also how many client/server scripts will break when the new TLDs arrive?

Re:Useful change

[SJHillman]

Considering that many users still put "www.apple.com" in the Google search box rather than the address bar, then choose Apple from the list of results.... I don't think it will be a problem. Besides, with people visiting sites with foreign TLDs, such as .ca, .au, .pl, .ru, .cn - I don't think they'll be too overwhelmed with choices other than .com, .net and .org.

Re:Useful change

[vlm]

Also how many client/server scripts will break when the new TLDs arrive?

Probably the unicode TLDs will be a larger challenge than .app

Re:Useful change

[thisisfutile]

Considering that many users still put "www.apple.com" in the Google search box rather than the address bar, then choose Apple from the list of results....

A side note. I'm an IE9 user and I have Google as my default search provider. In IE9, the address bar is the search bar too and when I enter "www.apple.com" or any other address, I most often end up searching instead of going directly to that site (mainly because I'm not entering the http://./ I'm not sure if that's a bad IE9 design or if it's Googles creative ways of displaying my results as I type (and sort-of forcing a search). I'm sure it helps their search results though and it's just one more reason that search results are leading people to actual websites rather than direct address entry. I'm curious if other IE9 users experience this.

Re:Useful change

[SJHillman]

Most of the browsers allow searching in the address bar. I prefer Opera's approach (which may be used by others now) in which it assumes anything in a dns format is a URL. So if you put "apple.com" it will take you to apple. If you want to search something that happens to be in dns format, then you have to put g before it (or whatever other shortcut you may use for a search provider.... g will do a Google search. This way "g vb.net" will not try to take you to a website called vb.net but instead will search for it. I find it preferable to the alternative of having two separate bars for addresses and searches.

That aside, the people I was referring to put the URL in the search box on Google's main page, not in the browser's search box. Drives me crazy every time my mother does it.

Re:Useful change

[Anonymous Coward]

"Foreign TLDs" ?!?! Maybe in fucked up America that's what you call them, but in the rest of the world we call them "country-specific TLDs," and at the very least we're aware of which TLD belongs to our own country... In fact, it's about time people started insisting that local businesses use ccTLDs and not the American-controlled .com, .net and .org.

Re:Useful change

[SydShamino]

I've fat fingered my bank's or broker's URL a few times too often, and I don't like getting redirected to anything unexpected. Dropping it in the Google box yields results with the correct site at the top, whether I typed it correctly or not.

Re:Useful change

[SJHillman]

I used the word foreign TLDs because most people are familiar with their own country's TLD... so I was singling out country-specific TLDs that exclude your own country. And what do we generally call countries other than our own? That's right, foreign. The examples I gave (Canada, Australia, Poland, Russia and China) will generally include at least four, if not five, foreign countries for almost everybody reading the post.

So, remind me again,

[SuricouRaven]

Who exactly benefits from this other than ICANN and the registrars? Because I'm fairly sure it isn't the public in general.

Re:So, remind me again,

[SJHillman]

Companies. Now instead of www.companyname.com being the first site people try, they'll try a new standard like www.companyname or home.companyname. I wouldn't be too surprised if just .companyname came into common use.

Re:So, remind me again,

[grommit]

So we're back to AOL keywords is it?

Re:So, remind me again,

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they still feel they're benefitting when nobody can remember what the hell they chose as their TLD.

Re:So, remind me again,

[vlm]

No one, because the new TLD names almost all suck and are for PR firms and megacorps.

I don't want to see .yoga I want a .yogapants TLD. Where's .chan? Where's .pr0n?

I am happy to see .WTF made it so far. I skimmed thru the list and thats the only new TLD that has any appeal for me, as either a buyer or a visitor.

I was kinda surprised to see .dodge as in the car marketing brand, but not the discontinued brand names like .oldsmobile or .saturn.

Re:So, remind me again,

[__aaeihw9960]

If no one can remember what a companies TLD is, it will just drive more traffic to Google, as the masses will just search for the company name, then click the first link that pops up.

Maybe this is a conspiracy to increase ad revenue for search giants. . . . . .

Re:So, remind me again,

[SuricouRaven]

And thus the people are saved from the finger-aching pain inflicted by four extra keystrokes! But you also lose the classifications. Taking a very classic example, does 'wwf' take you to wrestling or pandas? It was bad enough when one fit in .com and the other in .org.

Re:So, remind me again,

[91degrees]

I'm of the opinion that that's the idea.

When every company and organisation and even most networks want a .com, the .com is pointless.

Re:So, remind me again,

[franciscohs]

Who types in domain names any more?, I don't, since I never know if it was companyname.com or was it .net or a specific .com for my country?, did the site require www. or just companyname.com was ok?

new gTLD will make the situation worse, and you'll have to rely even more on search engines, bookmarks and address bar hints to remember what was the site and under what TLD is found.

If anything, I would just remove TLDs instead of adding more, it just creates redundant information in most cases. No one will give away his own .com now that they have new TLDs, they will just register the .com and the .whatever

Re:So, remind me again,

[SJHillman]

Considering WWF rebranded to WWE about 7 years ago, I don't think that will be a problem. Although panda wrestling would be awesome.

Re:So, remind me again,

[vlm]

Taking a very classic example, does 'wwf' take you to wrestling or pandas?

Kids these days. As an original internet gangster OG back when dinosaurs roamed the earth in the 90s, the classic example to prove that a projector equipped internet browser had connectivity, perhaps after the presenter 404d due to a typo, was to encourage the presenter to "surf" (I hate that verb) to www.whitehouse.com to see Prez Clinton's website (the real one being whitehouse.gov). Worked almost every time I tried it, did not matter if they fell for it, everyone started laughing. whitehouse.com was a pr0n site. Maybe still is. Depending on the presenter and audience, I think the presenter knew about it and just wanted to play along, or just wanted to see some pr0n to brighten up his day.

Anyway my point is I've got a great idea for a site at the new TLD and I think we'll call it whitehouse.democrat...

Re:So, remind me again,

[Anonymous Coward]

yep and typing more characters, too

Re:So, remind me again,

[SJHillman]

Removing TLDs would create more problems - aside from the fact that they're all being used. If you only have three TLDs, then you'll start having to remember names like applenonottheiosguystherecordlabel.com or app-l3.com. That's going to become a lot harder to remember than is it www.apple.com or apple.com when most sites will allow you to put in either of them. There's a limited number of second level domains available for any TLD before you start having to use very long strings of gibberish, which defeats one of the main purposes of DNS - being human readable.

Re:So, remind me again,

[residieu]

How is that different from nobody being able to remember what they chose as their .com domain name? (Are they mycompany.com, my-company.com, or mc.com)?

Re:So, remind me again,

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha,ha, only serious.

Re:So, remind me again,

[iniquitous]

We were already there. Doesn't "visit us on Facebook" sound a lot like "AOL keyword xyz?"

Re:So, remind me again,

[thisisfutile]

If no one can remember what a companies TLD is

...and now it will be even more complicated to teach end users what a phish email looks like.

Re:So, remind me again,

[__aaeihw9960]

Holy sweet baby jesus, that never crossed my mind.

My employer is FFFF.UUUU.CCCC.KKKK.EEEE.DDDD.

Re:So, remind me again,

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that different from nobody being able to remember what they chose as their .com domain name? (Are they mycompany.com, my-company.com, or mc.com)?

Exactly. I saw the worst hyphenated URL yesterday. It was something like youramericanhome-inspections.com. Seriously? Why the hell is there a dash there? Why not between all the words? Or none of the words? Was there really already a 'youramericanhomeinspections.com'? Why not start going the 'AIM' route and get a domain like youramericanhome-inspections6969.com. People are retarded.

Re:So, remind me again,

[bfree]

.bingo.
.bet .you .one .is .able .to .talk .in .top .domain, .ie .fun .gift .to .us .now .new .games .to .play .by .email .fishing .fans .eh?

.im .able .to .do .it. .fun .new .world, .net .is .now .bananarepublic.

.so .if .an .art .fan .gifts .me .digital .video .camera .and .sexy .pro .star .rental .to .suck .off .and .stroke .my .wang, .im .hosting .one .diy .bj .porn .movie .free .at .cheap .pub .site. .ooo

.ps .you .fail .and .gold .star .to .me .and .im .no .virgin .lol

Re:So, remind me again,

[jmerlin]

No. Keywords were allocated. Finding someone on facebook doesn't imply you're using an allocated keyword to get there -- you probably use a search, which is completely different than a keyword. If you typed in "http://www.facebook.com/" to get there, then perhaps. But that's only because URLs typically behave the same way as keywords. The fact remains: these new TLDs serve no beneficial purpose. They're completely redundant. A TLD was meant to imply a category for a website, but that disappeared long ago. Most people are used to typing ".com", ".net", etc. In fact, UIs have been built around these assumptions -- check your iPhone. Sure, we have "smart" URL bars these days in chrome and the likes where a URL that doesn't resolve throws you into a search result for that URL which will probably get you to the right place, but that's an error-prone approach and it's vulnerable to a trust attack. It's a horrible idea to make it even more difficult to guess or remember a company's web address. Liken this to it being announced that everyone can pick a second, third, fourth, and Nth phone number so long as the phone number is 15 digits in length instead of 10, just sign up and pay $N dollars and now everyone can call you from a different, longer number!

This is very clearly just a cash grab. ICANN wants more money. It's time to dissolve them. They cooperate with governments in illegal takedowns and they clearly do not operate in the best interest of the internet. No more.

Re:So, remind me again,

[Anonymous Coward]

My employer is FFFF.UUUU.CCCC.KKKK.EEEE.DDDD.

They registered .DDDD already?

Interesting

[SJHillman]

Three entities want .sucks, four want .soccer, six want .law, five want .group, but only two want .sex

Re:Interesting

[Chrisq]

... only two want .sex

I hope that they can come to some arrangement

Re:Interesting

[james_van]

five want .group, two want .sex, but sadly no one wants .groupsex :(

Re:Interesting

[thisisfutile]

I was surprised to see only one wants 'porn'. I guessed 20 before I scrolled down and I passed it because I was looking for multiple entries and not the actual letters.

TLD Squatters?

[RotateLeftByte]

One name keeps appearing as the primary contact (but with different emails)

Daniel Schindler

TLD Squatters are born perhaps?

It is also interesting that the like of Apple, IBM, Oracle and Microsoft all applied for their TLD's but HP didn't.

Re:TLD Squatters?

[SJHillman]

He was prepared and thus registered for everything on Schindler's List...

Re:TLD Squatters?

[ardyer]

From what I understand the application fee is 6 figures, I can't imagine anyone can afford to TLD squat. He's probably an attorney who specializes in this kind of bureaucratic paperwork and has lots of different clients who want TLDs.

Re:TLD Squatters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderated +1: Dad Joke.

Re:TLD Squatters?

[starsky51]

I'm more interested in the domains registered by donut.co. Each one is registered under a different LLC with company names that look like they have been auto generated.

Re:TLD Squatters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope - he is a squatter for a new squatting company called Donuts!
http://icannwiki.com/index.php/Daniel_Schindler
http://icannwiki.com/index.php/Donuts

Re:TLD Squatters?

[starsky51]

ah wait.. those are the same ones you're talking about. Never mind!

Re:TLD Squatters?

[Necroman]

Or you go to the website of the email address: http://donuts.co/

From their Team page:

Dan Schindler
Co-Founder and Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing

From their about us page:

Donuts is a domain name registry bringing variety and choice to Internet naming.

The company was founded by long-standing industry executives with experience in registry and registrar operations and industry regulation, and who have successfully launched top-level domains (TLDs), built industry-leading companies, and brought value and choice to the domain name marketplace.

Donuts has applied for more than 300 TLDs and intends to secure and operate each. The company is well-resourced by substantial funding from multi-billion dollar private equity and venture capital funds.

Looking at their investors, they have a lot of VC money. Looks like a startup trying to cash in on this. Though, it could be looked at in another light, that they are trying to provide a multitude of TLDs for people to use.

A news story about the company: http://www.geekwire.com/2012/seattle-area-startup-raised-100m-series-financing/
They have $100 million in funding.

Re:TLD Squatters?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://icannwiki.com/index.php/Daniel_Schindler

Re:TLD Squatters?

[BanHammor]

Also, he is one of the guys applying for .sucks. Kind of interesting why.

Re:TLD Squatters?

[Ingenimus Prime]

Briefly scanning, it sure looked like a some gTLD squatting. Especially with company names like "Dot App LLC" and "Dot Auto LLC". Maybe this is a blessing in disguise, it could really light a fire in the tech sector... (snerk).

It's times like these that make me long for the days of Cobol and punch cards....

Re:TLD Squatters?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're kidding, right? Seriously though, .hp is two letters, something not allowed in this gTLD land rush. I believe .hp is reserved for ccTLD. Maybe Hewlett Packistania perhaps?

This land rush seems stupid. As others have pointed out, will people really be searching these new gTLDs as opposed to just using a normal web search? Although, I would welcome region specific TLDs, like .seattle, .nyc, etc., because I don't see those as much different than being country based, provided we restricted registrations to those with addresses in the locale.

Re:TLD Squatters?

[ZeroSumHappiness]

Nice. Investment capital into the TLD land grab. This can't go wrong.

Re:TLD Squatters?

[ZeroSumHappiness]

Wouldn't it make more sense to use .seattle.wa.us and .newyorkcity.ny.us with an equivalent alias of .nyc.ny.us? It would save me a lot of time when I'm looking for the right Springfield if I knew that .springfield.ma.us was nearly guaranteed to point to the Springfield that houses the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Re:TLD Squatters?

[atisss]

HP knows that they can just create/buy country and name it "Hewlett Packard", thus getting .hp nearly automatically.

Re:TLD Squatters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the more explicit: "Top Level Domain Holdings Limited"

Re:TLD Squatters?

[Amouth]

Yes this is defiantly squatting, 307 TLD's listed each by him with different LLC for each one, and all are generic names.

If this opening up of the TLD's was in any legit way trying to expand the net they would reject all his applications because none of them are legit for anything other than squatting. But it isn't legit but rather a cash out by ICANN and they are more than happy to take this guys/VC's money and let the net have to live with squatters.

And to dispute any of them it costs between 2-20,000$. This is such an obvious & massive cash out it mazes me that they are getting away with it without more uproar.

Re:TLD Squatters?

[Fishbulb]

And by 'squatter' you mean 'facade':

From http://icannwiki.com/index.php/Donuts:

In June 5, 2012, Donuts announced that the company submitted applications for 307 generic top level domain names (gTLD) with different character sets to ICANN's New gTLD Program and secured $100 million capital from multi-billion dollar private equity and venture funds. [2]

[...]

The company signed a strategic partnership with Demand Media in pursuit of certain gTLDs. According to a press statement, under the agreement, Demand Media has the right to acquire some of the approved gTLDs applied for by Donuts. [6] Furthermore, Demand Media Europe Limited, will serve back-end registry service provider for Donuts. The registry provider is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Demand Media.[7]

From http://icannwiki.com/index.php/Demand_Media:

Demand owns eNom, the world's second largest domain registrar. Recently, Demand and eNom came under fire from ICANN, as Internet security group HostExploit reported that eNom is host to an unusually large number of malicious websites and is a preferred domain name registrar for pharmaceutical spammers.[4]

Anyone get .swirlingthedrain yet? Do the morons at ICANN understand the train wreck they're steering the internet toward, or have they simply been bought out?

Re:TLD Squatters?

[Anonymous Coward]

"defiantly"

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:TLD Squatters?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what's on Schindler's list?

Re:TLD Squatters?

[1u3hr]

Or you go to the website of the email address: http://donuts.co/

.co? So he's a Colombian. Investing his coke money, no doubt.

It's been really annoying how people like this pretend some cctld , like .co, means something completely different than the country it actually refers to. .tv is Tuvalu, not "television", .md is Moldova, not "doctor", etc.

Charleston Road Registry Inc.

[eternaldoctorwho]

It looks like they got a little gTLD-happy. I counted 102 applications alone, including GOOGLE, CLOUD, HOME, MOVIE, MUSIC, DEV, PROD, and YOUTUBE.

Re:Charleston Road Registry Inc.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are all for Google. Look at the email addresses.

Re:Charleston Road Registry Inc.

[jonwil]

Google also wants .plus, seems like a great thing for Google Plus where they could give every user .plus as a link directly to their Google Plus profile page. Easy to remember, easy to direct people to and small to link to in e.g. a Twitter message.

.pwn3d is still available

[Anonymous Coward]

Low entertainment value in this list

Daniel Schindler

[devjoe]

I think the most ludicrous application is by Daniel Schindler, who has applied for hundreds of new top-level domains, each one under a separate LLC with a name composed of two words from a small set of words, including baxter, big, castle, falls, frostbite, galley, half, hill, holly, june, knob, lone, maple, north, oaks, sand, spring, steel, tigers, town, and victor. Those words are just the ones from the applications for domains starting with A.

Re:Daniel Schindler

[SJHillman]

I count about 305 on Schindler's list, including a couple of eastern characters. All of them are donuts.co email addresses, so it looks like one of the previous posters may be on to something with him simply representing a large number of companies.

Re:Daniel Schindler

[Anonymous Coward]

Donuts.co is basically trying to the same thing as eu.com and us.com --> i.e. run by CentralNIC - which Daniel Schindler appears to be involved with too!

Re:Daniel Schindler

[Anonymous Coward]

Is each LLC attached to a different Venture capitalist that he's swindling?

Re:Daniel Schindler

[Hatta]

Daniel Schindler, who has applied for hundreds of new top-level domains, each one under a separate LLC with a name composed of two words from a small set of words, including baxter, big, castle, falls, frostbite, galley, half, hill, holly, june, knob, lone, maple, north, oaks, sand, spring, steel, tigers, town, and victor.

Hokey Smoke!

Mr. Geir Andreas Rasmussen

[Anonymous Coward]

I am curious who this Mr. Geir Andreas Rasmussen. He has put in an applications for 60 different dot words.

Seems Dangerous...

[Anonymous Coward]

Crap, I forgot to go register .legit-bank, .is-not-a-scammer, and .very-trustworthy...

Seriously though, why is this going through? Take Bank of America for example: I'll never sign in to anything that isn't https://www.bankofamerica.com . Now people will see (presumably, once scammers get geared up) .b0fa, .bofa, .bank0famerica, etc...

Good luck explaining this to people who are not computer savvy.

Re:Seems Dangerous...

[Anonymous Coward]

it's doubtful that the phishers will have the money to buy a tld. What you may see, on the other hand, are phony sits on something like .bank or .secure

kanji tattoos and domain names

[vlm]

Kids who are just a little younger than me have the consensus view that rebellion means anyone under the age of 20 when the fast and the furious came out should get kanji tattoos. This leads to hilarious blogs like the hanzismatter where gullible buffoons get random asian style tats that mean nothing at all, or have something truly embarrassing like it means small wiener when translated. Of course the concept is pretty moronic in general, makes me want to move to China and start inking gullible buffoons with english words like "goatse.cx" and telling the morons it means "strong" in english.

Anyway the point of this ramble is I can see some of the UTF-8 kanji TLDs being popular for vanity email addresses among the kanji tats crowd. After all, its kanji, it must be cool, right? Also I think it would be hilarious to go thru life in the US when people ask me for my email address I can tell them vlm at-sign "draw them a kanji". This might cut down on spam too. In fact I think it would be doubly awesome if I could intentionally get a kanji TLD that means "goatse", or maybe some random swear word.

(Another fun thing will be watching the love I'm about to receive in about 10 seconds from /.ers with kanji tats)

Re:kanji tattoos and domain names

[fallen1]

lol, well then I will send you some love -- Unlike the random clueless who just choose a kanji cause it looks cool, I was learning Japanese and had a reputable English-Japanese dictionary with kanji included. I found the word I wanted and cross-referenced the kanji with other reputable websites.

So, now I have "immortal" inscribed in ink. Correctly, I might add. It is still ... interesting? when people ask "Oh, what does it mean?" I usually say "Does it have to mean something?" which gets me dirty looks and a snide remark :-p

Re:kanji tattoos and domain names

[Anubis IV]

This might cut down on spam too.

I find the opposite more likely. Anyone in the Western world who you tell your e-mail address to will likely have difficulty reproducing it, whereas any spambot that manages to get hold of it will have no issues whatsoever copying it into their database of addresses to contact.

Re:kanji tattoos and domain names

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, so let's think of it this way. If you had gotten the same tattoo in English, would it be as cool? "immortal" right there on your arm. Are you immortal? Nope. No someone who has gotten a Purple heart award and gets a kanji of "hero", yeah, that's cool. Yours? It might as well say, "I can walk through walls".

Re:kanji tattoos and domain names

[ElectricTurtle]

When I read though that first, I thought you said 'immoral'... it was funnier that way. Now I kind of agree with the AC flamer...

Highly disappointed..

[Anonymous Coward]

In the lack of a .fart extension :(

No .linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone get on that quick!

Re:No .linux?

[ZeroSumHappiness]

Shhh. Either Microsoft will buy it or hundreds of different linux distros will have a cage match over how it works...

Insanity.

[Ingenimus Prime]

This is not going to start, nor end well. ICANN is an entity that can hardly manage it's former charter, much less this new and terrible word it's hell bent to inflict upon us.

As a Capitalist, I find some measure of merit in this initiative. As a human being, I'm horrified and not just a little nauseated at the overt greed and thinly veiled extortion of existing brand holders.

Does Anyone Actually Care

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone actually care about these new TLDs? Sure, I get that a few registrars anticipate making some money form them by selling ancillary registrations to people defending their names and trademarks for $5 a piece. But, do we really care about it? Do we really want MyName.Whatever?

To me, like .xxx a .secure or .mobile or even .google is meaningless. They are just longer to type and easier to forget than .com .net.org. Look at the ones we already have like .biz and .info that no one cares about and no one, besides spammers, actually use.

Re:Does Anyone Actually Care

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the ones we already have like .biz and .info that no one cares about and no one, besides spammers, actually use.

My credit union uses a .info, you insensitive clod!

Re:Does Anyone Actually Care

[Anonymous Coward]

...and guess who's forking out the $185,000 + $70,000 yearly:

CANCERRESEARCH Australian Cancer Research Foundation AU - - Mr. David Wallace Brettell dbrettell@acrf.com.au 1-2027-17584

If you are from down under and one of those guys show up at your door, asking for a donation, remind them of this.

.TX

[d3matt]

I demand a gTLD for my home state...

Re:.TX

[hattig]

Can't have two characters. It would have to be .texas

I'm sad there's no .WINNING though.

Re:.TX

[Megane]

It's possibly the best reason ever to secede.

For what it's worth, it appears that there was a minimum length of 3 characters for this fools-gold rush.

Re:.TX

[Talennor]

Never infer that Texas isn't a country. They get mad about that.

Re:.TX

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they still can't get over the fact that their great-grand-daddies joined the U.S.A. (due to not being good at running their own country) and then got slapped around when they tried to leave rather than have to pay the "help". Of course there's folks in other southern states that are also upset that their great-grand-daddies were told they had to pay the "help" as well, they just didn't have their own (failed) country first.

ICANN is made up by corrupt thieves

[Anonymous Coward]

The rotten and corrupt Domain Name System.

The most contested TLDs were:

[Anonymous Coward]

APP 13 applications
HOME 11
INC 11
ART 10
SHOP 9
LLC 9
BOOK 9
BLOG 9
MUSIC 8
MOVIE 8
DESIGN 8

Some big TLD squatter activity from:
donuts.co - 307 TLDs
famousfourmedia.com - 60 TLDs

Google wants 93 TLDs (including some legit trademarks)

Re:The most contested TLDs were:

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I really wish I'd asked for .MEH

Re:The most contested TLDs were:

[docguy]

I actually counted 101 for Google. See my spreadsheet (pages 34-36): https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4zFFRghN27SZVIzSERuTlVBUHc

.MATRIX

[Anonymous Coward]

A, ahem, friend of mine is wondering if the herd of assorted cats consisting of the current "matrix" (and variant) subdomains, Admiral Poindexter's buddies down in Orlando, a few former BBS operators, heirs of the Vannevar Bush estate, various SF writers, The BBC Dr. Who franchise, and all the others with current related domains, trademarks, and other interests, plan to or have approached L'Oreal (the current matrix.us and .com holder) about operating the .matrix registry on some kind of cooperative basis rather than purely engaging in rent-seeking behavior, or worse, de-facto censorship. Being associated with women's hair care products is enough of a burden :-)

I really like the way ICAAN seems to flip-flop between trademark-first and first-come, first-served according to how much money will be derived for itself and its friends. Not everything in the world needs to be monetized, and if ICAAN becomes too much of a travesty, enough people will just drop the current DNS and use something else. We'll leave .JOKE for the lawyers, bean-counters, and bureaucrats.

So few make any sense...

[cjjjer]

I briefly scanned over the list and the only one that I saw that made sense was .store, which when you use it seems natural www.amazon.store. Something like www.hotmail.mail or www.google.google seems pretty poinless to me when all they will do is just redirect to the dotCOM version anyway.

My .02

Re:So few make any sense...

[ledow]

Natural to you, maybe.

In British English, store is rarely used (unless it literally stores something and occasionally we call something a superstore but that's more likely to be a supermarket). .shop would probably work a lot better for us. But then, we have .uk and could shove it under that so there's really no need for these things at all.

I'm no more likely to go to a .store than a .com. In fact, just the opposite (why support someone's profit margins when they piss away money on .store and then charge ME for it, indirectly?). And, in fact, nothing changes here. I still don't know the URL for a lot of shops I use. Hell, I keep going to freecode.org instead of .com half the time. What draws me to and keeps me on a website is not the name, not the URL, but they damn product and how I find it (i.e. Google, bookmarks, etc.). Everything else is pointless.

Hell, there's a famous site called MoonFruit.com (I think it's .com anyway) for sending greetings cards, I can choose moneysupermarket to get car insurance (because that name makes a lot of sense!) and the best examples: Google. Facebook. Twitter. Nonsensical or spuriously-connected words. Having a TLD of any kind outside of the usual .co.uk / .com range (don't get me started on .uk.com!) actually just makes me wary of dealing with you. Because I know you probably spent a lot of money on a worthless domain and that will be reflected in your prices.

Re:So few make any sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, very pointless. Just like .mobi was going to be great to redirect mobile devices. Then, companies saw no reason to shell out more for another SSL cert, so m.domain.com became the standard for mobile sites instead. Are companies willing to buy more SSL certs just to cover these tld's?

List of gTLD that Google wants

[Anonymous Coward]

tas-contact@google.com: BOOK CLOUD GLE GMAIL GOOG GOOGLE GUGE NEXUS
tas-contact2@google.com: BUY DCLK FLY FREE KID MAIL SEARCH TEAM
tas-contact3@google.com: APP CPA DDS DEV DRIVE FILM GAME MOTO SHOP
tas-contact4@google.com: CHANNEL CORP DAY EAT HOME MED MOM SOY SPOT
tas-contact5@google.com: DOG DOT EARTH ESQ HERE MOVIE PLUS VIP
tas-contact6@google.com: AND GOO INC LLP MOV PHD TUBE WOW
tas-contact7@google.com: BABY LLC MAP PROF SHOW TALK TOUR YOUTUBE
tas-contact8@google.com: DIY HANGOUT LOVE MBA PET TECH ZIP
tas-contact9@google.com: ADS BLOG CAL FUN LIVE MEME MUSIC PROD
tas-contact10@google.com: ANDROID BOO EST FOO LOL SITE SRL STORE WEB
tas-contact11@google.com: ARE DAD DOCS GMBH HOW NEW PAGE YOU
tas-contact12@google.com: CAR CHROME FAMILY FYI GBIZ ING PLAY RSVP

Any guesses why they use different contact addresses? Priority? Different teams?

Re:List of gTLD that Google wants

[Anonymous Coward]

tas-contact@google.com: BOOK CLOUD GLE GMAIL GOOG GOOGLE GUGE NEXUS
tas-contact2@google.com: BUY DCLK FLY FREE KID MAIL SEARCH TEAM
tas-contact3@google.com: APP CPA DDS DEV DRIVE FILM GAME MOTO SHOP
tas-contact4@google.com: CHANNEL CORP DAY EAT HOME MED MOM SOY SPOT
tas-contact5@google.com: DOG DOT EARTH ESQ HERE MOVIE PLUS VIP
tas-contact6@google.com: AND GOO INC LLP MOV PHD TUBE WOW
tas-contact7@google.com: BABY LLC MAP PROF SHOW TALK TOUR YOUTUBE
tas-contact8@google.com: DIY HANGOUT LOVE MBA PET TECH ZIP
tas-contact9@google.com: ADS BLOG CAL FUN LIVE MEME MUSIC PROD
tas-contact10@google.com: ANDROID BOO EST FOO LOL SITE SRL STORE WEB
tas-contact11@google.com: ARE DAD DOCS GMBH HOW NEW PAGE YOU
tas-contact12@google.com: CAR CHROME FAMILY FYI GBIZ ING PLAY RSVP

Any guesses why they use different contact addresses? Priority? Different teams?

Amazon seems to have an equally impressive list of domains they want ..

AMAZON ANTHEM APP AUDIBLE AUTHOR AWS BOOK BOT BOX BUY CALL CAREMORE CARTIER CHLOE CIRCLE CLOUD COUPON CRUISE DEAL DEV DRIVE FAST FERRERO FIRE FLICKR FREE GAME GOT GROUP HOT HSBC IMDB ITV IWC JEWELRY JLC JOT JOY KIDS KINDER KINDLE KPMG LIKE LOVE MAIL MAP MOBILE MOI MONTBLANC MOVIE MRPORTER MUSIC NETAPORTER NEWS NOKIA NOW PANERAI PAY PIAGET PIN PLAY PRIME READ ROCHER ROOM SAFE SAVE SCA SEARCH SECURE SHELL SHOP SHOW SILK SMILE SONG SPOT STORE TALK TEVA TUNES TUSHU VIDEO WANGGOU WATCHES WOLTERSKLUWER WOW YAHOO YAMAXUN YOU YUN ZAPPOS ZARA ZERO

at approximately 100 each, that's 18+ million a piece..

Re:List of gTLD that Google wants

[Anonymous Coward]

Those scummy bastards at ICANN must already be holding parties.
This is why they should be removed from any sort of power. They are corrupt now.

Every single entity involved in the DNS should disown them and elect a new group.
I love how that nonsense was spread recently by them saying how scary it would be to allow the UN to control the internet instead of them.
Yes, because this is TOTALLY a brilliant idea, confuse the TLD space even more with generic terms, brilliant!

See you all on Usenet. I hope the web dies.

Re:List of gTLD that Google wants

[tlhIngan]

Any guesses why they use different contact addresses? Priority? Different teams?

Probably because it's easier to manage? If they get a response to tas-contact@google.com, they know it only applies to the 8 associated with that address. Helps to pre-sort what domains are being talked about, after all. And if there's a discussion to be had between various parties, it's only 8 out of all gTLDs they could be talking about, rather than any one of them which could confuse them (especially since several will be disputed. Figuring out which of the 8 per email are under dispute is a lot easier...).

Same reason a one-person company owning a domain might have several contact addresses (e.g., sales@, support@, webmaster@, etc) - it just helps pre-sort email so the general gist of the email is understood prior to actually reading it.

Re:List of gTLD that Google wants

[Anonymous Coward]

Any guesses why they use different contact addresses? Priority? Different teams?

Wouldn't .mom (tas-contact4) and .dad (tas-contact11) have (almost the) same priority and likely be the same team?

It seems Google are .dog people, but not into (lol).cat's...

Money

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, lets see.. 1930 domains applications * $185,000 per application = $357M

"Amazon EU" applying for dozens of generic names

[guanxi]

Search the list for "Amazon" and you'll find "Amazon EU S.Ã r.l" applying for many generic domains (as well as .amazon,.aws, and .imdb, which suggests it is the same business as Amazon.com), some related to their business and some not:
 
.app
.audible
.author
.book
.bot
.box
.buy
.call
.circle
.cloud
.coupon
.deal
.dev
.drive
.fast
.fire
.free
.game
.got
.group
.hot
... I stopped there.

More cannon fodder

[thogard]

Did anyone else just add all these to their spam filters?

Tomorrow I'm going to add them all to my dns root with mail records just to make sure I never see anything from this list of marketing idiots again.

Re:"Amazon EU" applying for dozens of generic name

[danomatika]

I counted 76

Oh shit ......

[Anonymous Coward]

If Google is after 93 gTLDs, that probably means that they will give a significant weighting to gTLDs in general. When I heard that they were applying for 4 in a previous story, I assumed that they weren't taking it seriously. If Google nukes gTLDs in search rankings, then they are pretty much worthless. If they give gTLDs extra importance, then we have a troubling situation where money is buying top/high search positions.

Sure, Google could just boost their own gTLDs, but that would go against everything that they have done to date. No, they will be obliged to favor big-money websites equally. Bad news for small websites everywhere.

Re:Oh shit ......

[jonwil]

The obvious answer is for Google to not treat gTLD websites different to any other web site.

.web should be a generic tld

[sohmc]

ICANN should probably just create this TLD and then use it the same way they use example.com.

So many shows and movies have used .web as fake URLs so that they don't have the same problem they did with phone numbers.

Futurama notoriously used .web and I, for one, give all power to the hypnotoad.

Ironically

[ThatsNotPudding]

.overkill is not on the list. Nor is .pandorasbox (though it will be soon, for all the wrong reasons).

What a joke

[pongo000]

You gotta love the crassness that ICANN displays when it comes to objections. Not only are you limited to the grounds upon which you object, but "you must pay a filing fee in the amount set and published by the relevant dispute resolution service provider at the time you file your objection." So IOW, if you can't afford to object (to the tune of USD6200 or more), you're shit out of luck.

For all that's holy, support the alt-roots movement before the Internet is completely consumed by commercial interests.

.app

[Anonymous Coward]

I see from the list that if it comes to an auction for .app the .APP REGISTRY INC. of KY (John Kane, Jkane1@afilias.info) will have to outbid Afilias Limited of IE (John Kane, jkane@afilias.info).

That's going to be an interesting bidding war!

BT, DT

[Fishbulb]

Let us not forget the invaluable .museum, which every museum in the world flocked to, freeing up valuable .com and .org space!

Let's just blacklist all these stupid new TLDs

[Phil Hands]

It strikes me that I'm extremely unlikely to be interested in domains below many (or any) of the listed TLDs (having glanced down the list) so why not teach the silly sods a lesson by blackisting them in bind by default, and thus make ICANN get the blame they deserve for peddling this nonsense.

Re:Let's just blacklist all these stupid new TLDs

[Anonymous Coward]

Can OpenDNS or someone offer this as a service?

Re:"Amazon EU" applying for dozens of generic name

[Anonymous Coward]

.box will be a lot of fun when it gets approved. AVM is using that for their routers web interface, as in http://fritz.box. Just imagine if there's a real domain with that name.

just to sell the email addresses

[gp1628]

Let me know when OFF and YOU are in the system. I would love to register fuck.off and fuck.you just to sell the email addresses that everyone would want.

.secure

[tofleplof]

i should have tried to buy '.you-are-the-1,000,000th-visitor'

Make a Firefox and Chrome plugin

[Anonymous Coward]

Most users can't because they don't control their DNS. Sad, but true.

So, instead, how about a Firefox and Chrome plugin which does a redirect or block. It could work in the same way as HTTPS-Everywhere

Perhaps this will mitigate this foolishness when the companies realise that users are bypassing the gTLD and that they are useless.

Vanity indeed. Money grubbing ICANN. Time for a new DNS system.

Looking at the groups behind the registrations

[docguy]

I found it fascinating to see how many companies make up a majority of the applications, so I went ahead and did the analysis. Only 13 companies make up 54% of the total requests for generic TLDs. Google is requesting 100 TLDs (5% of total requests). Here is the GoogleDoc with my analysis: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4zFFRghN27SZVIzSERuTlVBUHc