Web addresses are about to get a major facelift, and small companies could see higher costs, and few gains, when a flood of new online domains take effect.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers [ICANN] is pushing forward with its plan to add as many as 1,000 new top-level domains to the familiar line-up of .com, .org and .biz next year. But business groups such as the National Retail Federation [NRF] and the Association of National Advertisers are warning that the expansion may simply add up to big bills.
This could be especially true for firms that buy up domain names to keep pace with competitors, or to keep their brand names and trademarks out of the hands of people or companies -- known as cybersquatters -- that register domain names associated with someone else's brand to resell them for an inflated price or defraud consumers.
"Do [small businesses] just buy .hardware or .store, and how do they distinguish themselves and avoid confusion in the marketplace?" asks NRF General Counsel Mallory Duncan. "For a small business, they might legitimately say I don't know if those will ever catch on."
ICANN says it expects applications from large companies for vanity domains that use their brand names. Examples could include .amazon or .target. Organizations that want to offer registry services will likely apply for catch-all terms like .food, .florist and .realtor, and city names such as .nyc and .london.
Advocates of the name expansion believe the new top-level domains will provide marketing advantages for businesses and make it easier to steer customers to their sites, while increasing competition among domain registries. Search engines have said that they will factor the new domains into their search results, suggesting significant changes to page rankings that could alter the way consumers find businesses online.
Small companies will want to consider whether the domain names that emerge will provide worthwhile benefits for their business, given the costs. With ICANN charging $185,000 per application -- plus legal and consulting fees likely lifting the cost to $250,000, according to the NRF -- a top-level domain of one's own will likely be too expensive for most small companies.
But businesses may want to buy domain names that include new generic domains when they start becoming available next year. For instance, "Wheelies" bike shop in New York City may want to buy wheelies.bicycles.nyc. Prices for these domains will vary, ICANN says.
ICANN will take online applications from January 12, 2012 to April 12, 2012 for new top-level domains from organizations that aim to administer them. ICANN's evaluation of applications will take nine to 20 months. It expects to hold future rounds, but no dates have been set.
Will having a broader choice of domain names benefit your business, or harm it? Leave a comment and let us know.
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Comments:
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New extensions will fail... On the market extensions like .jobs .travel .museum, .aero etc. have been available for years and no one knows about it In any case register a domain for a profit is a speculation like Real Estate etc. Register a trademarked domain is another story and is something that must be punished.
I own Indulgence, LLC with Dba's Indulgence Tanning, Indulgence Fitness and Indulgence International. I own all the dot com's except for Indulgence.com which has been purchased by a squatter with no intention of ever using it. He wants $70,000 for the name. Squatters that purchase names of company's that are trademarked never succeed. Those names are taken away from them for no cost. Squatters that purchase names like my company will succeed, because they owned the domain name prior to my company being set up and incorporated.
This is a dumb idea that will make things alot more complicated. I hope it blows up in ICAAN's face.
I think instead of creating more domains they should focus on freeing up the vast majority that have been purchased by domain squatters. I was recently helping a client pick a new business name and we tried over 100 names that didn't exist as businesses yet the domains had been registered and weren't being used. I am sure pretty much everyone reading this has had the same problem.
Why because you say so ? Real Estate specualtion should be illegal as it adds zero, same for stock and commodity speculation. Secondly how do you know someone is not going to use the domain ? Domains have value and just like everything else there is a price to acquire them.
Domain name speculation should be illegal, like cybersquatting. Its serves zero function for the economy. You should only be able to own a domain name you are using for a legitimate reason, much like a trademark. Startups these days have to shell out $000s to get a domain name off some speculator who isn't even using it.
It's an open invitation to every cyber-crook in the world to steal our identity and duplicate our website any number of times. This is a shameless and transparent scheme by ICANN to extort money from businesses, small and large. What possible good could this do anyone but ICANN? Peggy at http://VermontWoodsStudios.com
Top-level domains are like computers without operating systems. The policies, or rules, for how they are run is the real issue. That's what makes them useful or not. Take .ECO for example. How will it be run? Who can get one and why? What does it mean to have a .ECO domain name?
its all a scam if you ask me. Just making you fork over extra money to protect your brand name so noone else will snatch it up.