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Huge growth expected for new extensions
There nothing like bad debt to force non-profits, like the ICANN, into dubious decisions which are, in the end, motivated almost entirely by greed, whatever the risks to “the rest” of the business model.
The ICANN has announced its plans to greatly expand the domain name extension market, way beyond .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .name and such, to include just about anything a registrar is ready to pay between 150k$ to 500k$ for.
So we might assist to a giant IT business like IBM, for instance, paying the ICANN to establish a new domain name extension labeled “.ibm” which could then be resold to anyone interested in paying the yearly registration fee, which would be likely left entirely to the discretion of the registrar.
Imagine an online web where almost anything of any significance has its own domain name extension — it could get very confusing, very fast. As soon as early 2009, actually since that’s when the ICANN plans to fast track the approval for such extensions. The astute domainer should therefore understand that the ICANN needs lots of new money, fast.
Name extensions like .london, .melbourne, .islands, .vehicles, .loveable, .unbelievable and just about anything out there are expected to pop up faster than we can count them, changing the online landscape forever.
The ICANN believes in “choice and opportunity” as the two main lines of thought behind their move but the idea of letting registrars expand the domain name extension pool ad infinitum also holds great risks of overly diluting the current domain name extension momentum.
Individuals won’t be allowed to establish new domain name extensions as only companies with very deep pockets and the resources to operate such a service will be fast tracked through the approval process. Under these conditions, it’s obvious that Network Solutions and GoDaddy, to name only those, will be well positioned to launch a slew of domain name extensions.
Forget the principle of fairness in the creation of these extensions. The ICANN has decided to unilaterally favor the rich registrars because this, for all useful purposes, is a huge money grab for the folks at ICANN who will surely vote themselves a nice salary increase to cover for the added workload of managing this new mess. If university students want to study a case where a non-profit corporation ditches coherence in favor of sheer greed, this is it.
From a legal standpoint, if you have a brand that you need to protect in the digital realm, expect to be financially fleeced out by the seemingly never-ending multiplication of domain name extensions, in the years to come. Keep in mind that the ICANN has no “overall” rule that’ll protect your brand within all domain name extensions since every single registrar may rule over their extension as they please. So unless you want to be sending nasty cease and desist letters all the time, paying your lawyer premium fees to do so, you’ll probably end up buying out your brand name in all of these extensions — in both cases, the ICANN has setup a system where almost everybody has to become paranoid about protecting their brand.
Examples abound. Think of Apple Computer. They have their “apple.just-about-anything” brand established worldwide but what happens when .london pops up. They’ll probably want to buy apple.london. And then, what if 250 more popular european cities pop up. Apple will almost certainly want to buy apple.paris, apple.lyon, apple.rome (or apple.roma, for the locals) and if certain cities don’t see their extension purchased by such industry heavyweights, will they turn their back on them? For instance, if Apple chooses not to buy apple.prague, will the people living in Prague see this as an offensive gesture?
This is just one example among countless others that’ll make domaining a new, uncharted world of utter confusion, frustration and exploding costs.
Some domainers might get their hands on interesting domain names, like gamers.london or visiting.london but overall, there’s no guarantee these new extensions will draw natural visitors. The mainline .com will likely remain “king of the hill” for many years to come -but- seeing the failure of the much hyped .biz might send a chill down the back of those registrars who feel they can push any extension down potential domain owners’ throats.
It’s already expected that some of these new domain name extensions will be more attractive —and expensive— than others but if the ICANN allows for a seemingly uncontrolled expansion of the extension pool, it’ll almost certainly backfire and the internet, as a relatively healthy entity, could be hardly hit.
Let’s hope for the best with this latest ICANN move but at the same time, let’s also (discreetly) brace for a bumpy ride.
Tags: icann, new domain name extensions, new extensions, registrars, domain names, domains, domainers, domaining, rich registrars, expensive extensions, greed, internet, naming system, root dns, new names approval
One Response to “Huge growth expected for new extensions”
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The idea of city extensions sounds like a good idea to make search more relevant but the article above has me worried. Is there any date in mind for the changes outlined above?