Alex Hern

Dispatches from the front line of the internet

Internet gold rush: Amazon wants .mail, Guardian wants .observer and S.C. Johnson wants .mrmuscle

As new top level domains go on sale, companies bid for the land rush.

By Alex Hern Published 13 June 2012 15:56

Klondyke City, or .klondyke? Photograph: Getty Images

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, has released the full list of the companies bidding on new personalisable top level domains, known as generic TLDs (gTLD). These take the place of the ".com" in a url, and allow companies to have websites at addresses like "video.youtube" or "gameofthrones.hbo".

Any company bidding on a domain name has to pay a non-refundable $185,000, and if there are multiple bidders, ICANN will assess them on "technical merits" and may hold an auction. Winners are then also obliged to pay high annual fees to the corporation.

Not every company bid on domain names using their own name. Google, for instance, has already revealed that it is bidding on names like .youtube and .lol, but on the ICANN document the bidder for those names shows up as "Charleston Road registry", and it is difficult to tell whether this is a Google shell or a company bidding for multiple domains for multiple clients.

Some of the companies that did bid for domains are below:

Guardian News and Media ltd bid for .gdn, .guardian, .guardianmedia, .observer, and .theguardian. Total cost: $925,000.

Amazon EU bid for 76 names, including .app, .author, .book, .cloud, .drive, .fast, .hot, .jot, .joy, .kindle, .like, .mail, .new, .shop, .smile and .zero, at a total cost of $14.06m

The British Broadcasting Corporation bid for .bbc. Cost: $185,000

Apple inc. bid for .apple. Cost: $185,000

Wal-Mart stores bid for .一号店, .asda, .george, .grocery, .samsclub and .walmart. Total cost: $1.11m

Nominet UK (the UK's registrar, responsible for the .uk TLD) bid for .wales and .cymru at a cost of $370,000

Hasbro international bid for .transformers, cost $185,000

Microsoft corporation bid for 11 names, including .azure, .bing, .windows, .skype and .xbox. Cost: $2.035m

Sony, through three subsidiaries, bid for .playstation, .sony and .xperia. Cost: $555,000

Ladbrokes bid on .bet and .ladbrokes, costing $370,000.

Uniregistry, corp bid on 55 names including .sexy, .hiphop, .christmas, .pizza, .tattoo and .yoga. It cost $10.175m

Tags: internet

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7 comments

Tue, 2012-06-26 10:39 — Muzaffar (not verified)

Is it really a gold rush?
I think these personalized domains will just mess up the internet. If we don't know the extension of some website somtimes, we simply try with .com or .net but what after all the extensions are personalized!!!!

http://www.internet-earning-guide.com

Sat, 2012-06-16 13:08 — Marius Iorga (not verified)

I dont know if it's a gold rush but the competition is so strong that it may become one soon.
Marius Iorga
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Thu, 2012-06-14 16:07 — iRule (not verified)

I don't find the new extensions useful, I think this are just invented to squeeze some big bucks from big companies ... I mean really, what's wrong with the old extensions ? I love .com and I don't want to start remembering other few hundreds new extensions
jocuri online copii

Thu, 2012-06-14 15:01 — Green Source of Energy (not verified)

The internet is changing rapidly, but this will increase more branding of the company, business or corporations. Its classic in its own form.

http://freehomeenergytips.blogspot.com

Thu, 2012-06-14 10:57 — James Smith77 (not verified)

I just do not understand why internet is turning into a mess. First came domains like cc which were useless from IM point as we hardly see and cc domains.

There are domain resellers who already take all EMD's and then sell it for high price which should not be allowed at all. I see many domains which I wish to have but cant just because someone has taken to make a huge profit from selling it and it is sitting idle. it is really frustrating.

Domains which are inactive even after 6 months should be made free to register again.

James
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