tlds

When the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers decided to expand the domain landscape -- letting brands and anyone else with the money apply for the rights to own and run .anything -- it did so to create competition in a world of expanding demand.

And competition is what it's getting. That's clear now that ICANN has revealed who's going after what domain extensions and where there are competing applications.

The basics, according to ICANN and some data crunching from Melbourne IT Digital Brand Services:

Earlier today in London, ICANN released a list of thousands of applications for new generic top-level domains. The applications include plenty of brand protection moves like .google and .bentley, as well as some more generic speculation plays like .beer or the very popular .app, which received several applications.

There was also plenty of weirdness buried in the list of suffixes, applicants, and primary contacts.

For example, it looks as though Google might be interested in giving the Cheezburger network a run for its money with oddball applications for domains .lol, .wow, and .fun.… Read more

Among the thousands of applications for new generic top-level domains that ICANN released today are three to run new .army, .navy and .airforce domains. The applicant isn't the U.S. Department of Defense -- or any other government entity for that matter -- it's those masters of cheap, spammy content, Demand Media.

The military suffixes are three of 26 applications that list United TLD Holdco Ltd. as the applicant -- United TLD is a Cayman Islands-based subsidiary of Demand Media, which runs eHow.com and other sites. The company was part of the inspiration behind tweaks to Google's search algorithm last year that resulted in giving less weight to so-called "content farms" -- like Demand Media.… Read more

Get ready to be a bit more confused about Web site addresses.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Named and Numbers today revealed which generic top-level-domains that companies and organizations have applied for, a major step in the six-year-long process to expand the domain name system to create more competition in a world dominated by dot-com names. For consumers, it means a new way of typing in URL, moving beyond the standard .com or .url addresses.

"It's a historic day for the Internet," said ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom. "The internet is about to change forever."

For … Read more

Frank Schilling made his fortune in the aftermath of the dot-com bust, buying up thousands of domain names others didn't want. He kept at it, aggressively building a portfolio of more than 320,000 domains that, through a combination of ads and outright sales, have made Schilling a decamillionaire many times over.

Now the 43-year-old domainer is going after what he sees as a far bigger opportunity. He's put up $60 million of his own money to stake his claim on a giant, emerging piece of the Internet -- the opening up of so-called generic top-level domains, or … Read more

It's now too late to apply to ICANN to create new generic top-level domains (think .com, .net, .org, .gov, .xxx, etc.), but Google evangelist Vint Cerf says the company turned in a bunch of applications, including at least one with some great humor potential.

In a post on Google's blog, Cerf writes that Google applied to create and administer new top-level domains in at least four categories:… Read more

The Internet's primary governing body -- ICANN -- is struggling to get its act together.

The global organization has again pushed back the deadline for taking applications for new top-level domains -- a process that was put on hold last month after ICANN "received a report of unusual behavior" with the system's software.

This latest wrinkle comes as ICANN is in the midst of its biggest effort ever to expand the domain name landscape to potentially thousands of alternatives beyond .com, .net, and the many other suffixes already available. The new names also have the potential … Read more

A rare rift has developed between national governments and the nonprofit organization that oversees Internet domain names, with neither side showing signs of backing down in a dispute that includes trademarks and free expression.

In a statement released over the weekend, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, listed 23 areas of continued disagreement over the rules for approving new top-level domain names. Hundreds of applications for these suffixes are expected later this year, including .car, .love, .movie, .web, and .gay.

ICANN chairman Peter Thrush wrote (PDF) that his organization "has made a good faith effort … Read more

The Obama administration has failed in its bid to allow it and other governments to veto future top-level domain names, a proposal before ICANN that raised questions about balancing national sovereignty with the venerable Internet tradition of free expression.

A group of nations rejected (PDF) that part of the U.S. proposal last week, concluding instead that governments can offer nonbinding "advice" about controversial suffixes such as .gay but will not receive actual veto power.

Other portions of the U.S. proposal were adopted, including one specifying that individual governments may file objections to proposed suffixes without paying … Read more