ICANN Approves .anything Domains

[engine]

ICANN Approves .anything Domains [latimesblogs.latimes.com]

The body that controls the way Internet domain names work, known as ICANN, has voted to open up the naming system so that any established organization with enough cash can apply to create its own version of .com, .org or .gov.

In the for-profit world, that means that instead of going to coke.com or nike.com, you might be able to go to drink.coke or justdoit.nike. Nonprofit groups could reserve the .school domain and hand one out to every elementary school. Cities could consolidate their online presence at .nyc or .losangeles. And interest groups could stake out their own corner of the Web by offering every auto junkie a .car domain name, every law firm a .law address, and every restaurant a site that ended with .food.

But just like real estate in the real world, this new virtual land won't come cheap. The price tag to get a new domain created is $185,000. Only "established public or private organizations" can apply, and all applications must prove they have the technical capability necessary to keep a domain running.

[Hope_Fowl]

I wonder how long it will take for someone to register .web, .www, .dotcom, .xx, and .#*$!x.

If I had money to waste, I'd try to make sure that "I have a .gub".

[artek]

Search engines are going to have headaches

I think search engines are very comfortable with .COM so they may just ignore new extensions or penalize them like .info for spamming.

Just look what happened with CO, MOBI, BIZ, WS, EU, CM, US, TV, TRAVEL, PRO, CC, NAME, AERO, and etc., basically NO impact. In most cases they redirect to .COM

Seriously if someone wants to pony up for a new venture, I'd like to grab .mail and .chat

How would you monetize them? Selling individual subdomains(?) like JohnDoe.mail or joker.mail or free.mail will carry liability for the owner of .MAIL so you need to be ready and have deep pocket to police and control how subdomains are used.

[walkman]

really good ones like hotel/s, mortgage, insurance etc will go into an auction since many companies will want to be the registrar for them.

You can only imagine how high it will go, making any smalltown.insurance really expensive when it's all said and done.

[IanKelley]

any effect on domain valuations

I doubt it... at least in the short term. As many have mentioned when the average person thinks website they think .com.

I could see that slowly changing but it will take quite a while, until then the value of .coms is safe.

[Maurice]

@Sgt_Kickaxe

how so ICANT will say (quiet rightly) that running a TLD requires serious investment and they want to make sure that the TLD will have 100% uptime and not mess up.

I used to sit next to the tech lead for the .coop bid and the tech requirements are quite stringent non of this cheap as chips crap that a lot of the "cloud" providers are pushing.

BTW if anyone does have deep pockets and is serious I can introduce you to some people who can help shepherd a tld bid through ICANN

1% of the bid cost as an arangement fee :-)