Internet Governance & Policy

Pre-Reveal Day Sneak Peek

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May 11, 2012

By jbourne

We may not know precisely when ICANN will finally publish the full list of new gTLD applications and applicants, but we do know that it will be at least a month from now. And certain companies have come forward over the past few weeks, announcing that they are applying for certain new gTLDs. So while we’ll have to sit tight for the full list, we at least have a small sneak peak of a few of the 2,100+ applications we’ll see on Reveal Day. Here’s what we’re looking at so far:

Google told Advertising Age that it is applying for “several” domain names, saying, “We plan to apply for Google’s trademarked TLDs, as well as a handful of new ones.” Those “trademarked TLDs” likely include .GOOGLE and .YOUTUBE, at least.

According to a recent CNET article, domain name registrar GoDaddy is also going after three gTLDs: .GODADDY and two more that it will not disclose. GoDaddy isn’t the only registrar in the game, either: Demand Media, the parent company of registrar Enom, has invested $18 million “in pursuit of its generic Top-Level Domain initiative.” It has not stated which extensions it is going for, but $18 million translates to nearly 100 applications.

NCC Group is applying for .SECURE, according to Ars Technica. Domain Incite has revealed the plans of many other gTLD applicants, including the International Rugby Board’s bid for .RUGBY, ICM Registry’s plans for .SEX and .PORN (to complement .XXX), Primer Nivel’s intention to acquire .BLOG, and the groups of bidders going after .ECO and .MUSIC.

And gTLD Strategy readers will also recall that VeriSign is applying for multiple transliterations of .COM, in addition to a handful of other gTLDs.

This list clearly only scratches the surface of what we will see on Reveal Day, but it does begin to paint a picture of how diverse the list of applicants and strings will likely be.

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