ICANN reveals new gTLDs on Reveal Day

Article  \  14 Jun 2012

ICANN’s Reveal Day has finally unveiled, at a press conference in London, the 1930 applications for new generic top-level domain names (gTLDs). 

The usual mixture of well known brand names have applied for gTLDs, such as .audi, .bmw, .google, .microsoft, .mcdonalds and .nike. Many generic strings were also there like .tech, .wine and .art. Of these the most popular seems to be .app with 13 applications. .art wasn't far behind with 10.

As speculated, some brand owners have submitted applications for generic terms as well as for their brand names. Amazon's strategy moves in the direction of its online retail positioning with applications for .book, .buy, .news, .music, .movie, .mobile and .tunes. Google's applications relate to its core business and trade marks with over 100 applications for new gTLDs, including .blog, .book, .cloud, .docs, .phd, and .wow. Both Amazon and Google have applied for .you.

Even the Vatican have jumped on the internet bandwagon with an application for .catholic.

While a fair few applications have come out of Australia, only two relate to New Zealand in particular. As expected, Dot Kiwi Ltd has applied for .kiwi. The only other application from a New Zealand applicant was .rip from dotRIP Ltd. As Computerworld points out, we can only presume that it's for funeral directors or bulk copiers of DVDs/CDs.

Now the fun starts. Expect to hear many trade mark owners, countries and other stakeholders raising objections to many of the proposed new gTLDs in the coming weeks and months. Many deals will be done behind closed doors, but there will also be many formal objections and public complaints. Every business needs to consider how these domains will impact on them.

Here's the full list of New gTLD Applied-For Strings.

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