Today is the day that has been anticipated as top level domain applications are revealed. I mentioned this a few months back, for the small sum of approximately $85k, you can apply to create you own generic top level domain (similar to .com and .net). ICANN received more than 1900 applications by the May 30th deadline.

Google has applied for .google (makes sense) and .docs, lol and .youtube while the American Bankers Association has applied for .bank and .insurance. the Directi Group has applied for 31 domain strings including .hotel, .movie and .shop.

What does this allow them to do? Have their very own domain registry and in some cases, sell domains with those extension much the same as you can buy a .com or .ca now. Only they will be making the yearly fees.

Up to now there are 22 existing suffixes, including the country designations, others like .org (for charities) and the new .xxx. Some say that it will make the internet more innovative and competitive, but others say it will be very confusing. At least now you know when you see a .com that it is a website, but it will be very confusing if you have something like stocks.shares. Is that a typo or a web address?

Also, just because a name is a well known brand in one country, doesn’t mean that they will necessarily be allowed to buy that suffix. There may be an equally or more well known brand with the same name in another country. It will be interesting to see what the internet looks like in the next few years and the outcome of this new rule.