Global company Markmonitor Group manages the domain names of the world’s largest companies. The company recently assessed ICANN’s new “Top-Level (new gTLDs) distinction for businesses and organizations (gTLD is the final part of a domain name, after the dot: examples include .com, .org and .net.)
Although ICANN announced new Top-Level Domains can be useful, Markmonitor stresses the risks involved with this domain name expansion:
Markmonitor Group CEO Ben Crawford said, We congratulate ICANN on enabling corporations to register their brands at the top level of the internet, once reserved for country codes such as .uk and .fr. Our clients who have embraced this opportunity include many of the world’s best-known brands, but also a number of visionary early-stage companies that realize the value of possessing a dotBrand “Top-Level Domain” – the only global and permanent category of intellectual property.
However, the potential of seeing hundreds of new non-branded domain endings also poses potential risks, including costs for businesses and potential scams targeted at their customers.
ICANN announced not only company new Top-Level Domain name endings such as .alphabet, .claude, .ethereum, .mitsui, .roblox and .tiktok but also geographic ones like .beijing, .roma and bali, and more road and basic ones such as .brain, .bro, .geek, .mars, .moon, .nerd, .nsfw, .omg, and .stupid.
Because of the major implications of literally owning a brand name domain there are “mechanisms” to challenge their acquisition:
Critically, there will be mechanisms for owners of existing legal rights (such as trademarks) to challenge any new gTLD application that infringes their rights during this period.
According to ICANN, There were 1,615 applications for new Top-Level Domains. The availability of the new domains were available April to August this year. The initial cost was $227,000 payable to ICANN, with yearly management costs around $100,000. The gTLDs include 333 applications for brand names (155 from North America, 64 from Europe and 107 from Asia-Pacific).
On November 17, ICANN will publish a final list of new gTLD applications where “applicants can choose a replacement string rather than their primary string if they wish to avoid potential conflicts.” A 104-day formal public comment and objection period will commence after this.
This is not the first time ICANN has offered available Top-Level Domains:
The last gTLD expansion was in 2012 and led to over 1,200 new gTLDs being added to the internet, including generic terms such as .XYZ, .Shop and .Club, geographical terms such as .London and .NYC and brands including .Sky, .HSBC and .Shell.