
Tech press misses Google/Amazon name grab - davewiner
http://scripting.com/stories/2012/06/15/theTechPressIsOutToLunch.html
======
nostromo
The whole thing just stinks.

Look at the full list here: [http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-
status/application-resu...](http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-
status/application-results/strings-1200utc-13jun12-en?tag=mncol;txt).

Notice how 70 were applied for by "Top Level Domain Holdings Limited". Go to
their website, and click management. <http://www.tldh.org/management/>

The exe's bio says, "Prior to joining TLDH, Peter Dengate Thrush was Chairman
of the Board of Directors of ICANN, and in that role led the process that
resulted in the historic decision to launch the new gTLD program in June
2011."

1) Get on ICANN board of directors

2) Convince ICANN to create gTLDs

3) Quit ICANN and create a company to squat and resell gTLDs

4) Profit!

~~~
inopinatus
This whole process is a scam designed to extort more money from trademark
holders and well-known names through ever-growing defensive registrations.

In the real world this would be construed as protection money.

No further semantic information is conveyed by another domain registration;
there is no improvement whatsoever in resource discoverability.

The only winners are the name squatters, with Google and Amazon and every
other applicant greedily lining up to be the slum landlords of their own
worthless little namespace.

ICANN should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for presiding over this
farce.

~~~
icebraining
How do they extort money, if you can stop other from registering a TLD with
your trademark by just filling a Legal Right Objection[1], which if valid
costs you essentially nothing ($2000)?

[1]: <http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/lro/>

~~~
chrisbolt
Because now you have to deal with registering yourcompany.blog,
yourcompany.cloud, etc

~~~
icebraining
And why would you have to do that? Do you really think people will start
guessing domains instead of putting "company blog" in their search engine?

People don't care about domains. They put "facebook" and even "google" in
Google and click on whatever comes up on top.

Nobody goes to books.com to buy books, nobody goes to albums.com to buy music
albums, it's all irrelevant.

~~~
rudasn
So after all these years we continue to support the middle-man idea (Google)
instead of trying to figure out a way to move away from that.

It's not OK for people to not know how to use the internet.

~~~
icebraining
_So after all these years we continue to support the middle-man idea (Google)
instead of trying to figure out a way to move away from that._

If you want people to move away from middle-man, domains are certainly not the
solutions, and the new TLDs will not change that for better nor for worse.

We had domains before Google. People switched because they suck as an human
interface.

 _It's not OK for people to not know how to use the internet._

It's not only about that. I know perfectly well how it works, but I still use
Google all the time for finding company websites, because it'd be incredibly
stupid to spend 10m guessing the domain instead of making a 300ms request to a
search engine.

Domains are great for decoupling URLs, configuration files, etc. from IP
changes. They're certainly not a good mechanism for website discovery.

~~~
rudasn
I'm not saying that domain names solve the problem of people typing "facebook"
on google [1] or that typing "XYZ company" on google is a problem to be solved
by XYZcompany.com. In other words, domains and search engines have distinct
use cases and the problem is that people don't know how to use either.

[1] It is a problem because it allows people not to understand the basics of
how the internet works. I don't expect people to understand protocols and
stuff like that. People don't want to understand technology, they only want to
benefit from it. I don't know 80% of the features my TV provides but I don't
care - I can still watch TV. People feel the same about the Internet - they
know they don't understand it but they don't care because they can still log
in to facebook and watch videos on youtube. But using a middle man (call it
Google, Yahoo, or even Facebook) to do these things undermines the nature of
the internet as _we_ know it and allowing this trend to continue will most
likely lead to problems that _we_ will have to resolve. (Not exactly similar,
but when MS decided that browsers don't matter it was our job to tell people
to stop using IE6 and switch to Firefox. I wouldn't want to be the guy that
tells people don't use Google for this, use ____ instead).

------
filmgirlcw
So a year ago, when the new ICANN TLD expansion was announced, I wrote up an
FAQ for normal people explaining the process. I actually read the entire 352
page document and took the time to call ICANN (and ICANN does not like me
because I've been critical of their policies in the past, so that was no small
feat) and get confirmation on how the process works.

This week, we've run a number of stories discussing the current phase of the
situation, but to be honest, the general audience response has been 'meh.' CNN
wanted me to do a spot on Tuesday or Wednesday about it, but it was a
scheduling conflict.

The reality is, the story isn't substanatively different than it was a year
ago. We're now at the application phase. For certain generic TLDs, communities
can appeal against the use by one party. For many of the most contentious
TLDs, there have been groups fighting for control for years. See .music.

The reality is that at this point, Google and Amazon applied for the use of
certain TLDs. Some are likely to receive pushback -- cloud and search seem
ripe for appeal. Google could argue that "blog" is synonymous with "blogger"
-- they might win that (tumblr and WordPres could register tumblr and wp if
they wanted). The reality is these won't be issued over night.

With some, Google might even have plans to act as an exclusive registrar for
some of them.

The situation is this. Despite ICANN's claims that this process would be
designed to prevent abuse and land grabs, what's happening is what we all
expected: land grabs and abuse, but just from the people rich enough to file
the application and pay for the ensuing infrastructure. It is what it is.

I don't see this phase as a huge story, only because it's the expected next
step. The story will be what gets approved and what are the implications of
those approvals. It's too early in the bureaucratic process to start trying to
get people up in arms about a process the was designed to be as cumbersome and
difficult to navigate as possible.

Publicizing (again) the way the process works won't change the process.

------
ryanwaggoner
Meh...if this is how it ends up working, doesn't this mean that gtld's will
basically end up being equivalent to subdomains, but on the other end of the
URL? Does it matter if some crappy blog is at unicorns.blog instead of
unicorns.blogspot.com? I just see this landgrab as guaranteeing that those
gLTD's won't end up being that valuable or prestigious in the long run...

~~~
cowboyhero
It's more likely that some of these are defensive applications, to lock
competitors from getting them (eg: blog, tunes).

Winer is right, and I'm surprised nobody is writing about this or calling much
attention to it. There's enormous potential marketing value behind domains
like "beatles.music" or "harrypotter.books" or "superman.movies".

With the advertising and reach of companies like Amazon and Google (or even
Warner and Sony), I think these new domains have the power to split the web,
and potentially turn .com, .net, and .org into something of a ghetto (sorta
similar to how .biz and .name might be viewed by Joe Consumer now).

On the other hand, it may well be meaningless. I'm continually surprised to
see big companies use facebook.com/[companyname] in their advertising too.

~~~
smattiso
Does google prefer certain domains over others? Ie .com over .info as a rule?
If so I wonder how this plays into that.

~~~
ceol
Consider when searching "nissan" in Google, <http://www.nissan.com/> is the
fourth result despite being essentially a parked page that no one would ever
really want when making that search.

I would say TLDs are very influential.

~~~
taftster
No, www.nissan.com is popular because of Page Rank. It really is little (if
anything) to do with the domain name.

The Page Rank is high with nissan.com due to its lawsuit with Nissan Motors.
They even have a link at the top of their page with information about the
lawsuit.

Many tech articles have been written about www.nissan.com. This is more a
study about Page Rank, Public Relations and the Streisand Effect than
anything.

~~~
galactus
The page rank is high probably because of the people who link nissan.com
without checking

------
blhack
I seriously hate GTLD so very, very much.

I want to run an online bookstore. Dare I say I want to start an amazon
competitor.

Well now amazon _owns_ .books -- Amazon owns books on the internet.

That is _bullshit_.

~~~
icebraining
No, they don't, domains are essentially a meaningless string. _Nobody_ cares
about your domain; I mean, people search for "google" in Google!

It's no different than Barnes&Noble owning books.com. Meaningless.

~~~
seanconaty
I'm sure instead of going to google.com you go to <http://74.125.225.68/>
because domain names are meaningless.

~~~
icebraining
I go to whatever address Firefox has configured for "Google Search". Couldn't
care less if it's google.com or 2a00:1450:4003:800::1008

But in any case, my point is that any domain is fine, not that domains as a
whole are useless.

~~~
andreyf
This is weird: a Google search for that "2a00:..." string [1] results in a
link to what looks like this page, but hosted on 13l.blork.ly. What's up with
that?

1\.
[https://www.google.com/search?q=2a00%3A1450%3A4003%3A800%3A%...](https://www.google.com/search?q=2a00%3A1450%3A4003%3A800%3A%3A1008)

~~~
icebraining
Probably someone used the "Blork.ly" service to share a link to this story, I
don't know.

I just did a dig -t AAAA google.com to find out their IPv6.

------
gyardley
Verisign's name grab is more interesting - the most natural spelling of the
'.com' TLD in scripts other than Latin. Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.

Now _that's_ going to be fun for people who already own .com domains targeted
to those audiences, because I could see people reverting to .com in their
native script very easily, and unless you buy the right domains from Verisign,
they won't necessarily get to the same domain.

I imagine Verisign will be the only place in the future where when you buy the
.com, they'll upsell you on the equivalent .com in various other scripts.

------
jlarocco
The concept of top level domains seems a bit outdated. I can only guess that
under the new system "store.apple.com" will become "store.apple",
"myname.blogger.com" will become "myname.blog", etc. So why not go the other
way and just drop TLDs altogether? I know there are a few cases where a ".net"
domain would clash with a ".com", but the people in those cases are already
used to the conflict, so let them work it out which one keeps the TLD in their
name and which one becomes TLD-less.

The way it's going seems like a money grab by ICANN.

~~~
forgotusername
Namespaces exist for a reason. For example, what do you call your network
printer after <http://canon> gets reserved by the printer manufacturer? Same
with <http://epson>, whatever. And is <http://printer1/> safe? Only until
someone writes a paragraph justification and shows up with $1m.

The entire process is a money grabbing farce.

~~~
icebraining
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.local>

~~~
forgotusername
Why should I have to type "canon.local" for my printer name, just in order to
avoid an advert to buy a new printer? This destroys any sense of user
preference in favor of large corporations pushing their shit further into your
face even when you explicitly don't want it.

I've worked at many places where <http://search/> was the Intranet search
facility. Not now though, nope. Now your IT department will be under pressure
to accept Big Search's latest site-integrated intranet search which they
conveniently started marketing around the time they broke all your local URLs.

~~~
nikcub
The good thing about DNS is that the user controls it. You can set it to
whatever you want. Enough people set it one way and it becomes a standard that
no board can decide against.

~~~
pooriaazimi
Sometimes changing DNS servers causes biiiig (and confusing) problems with
captive networks.

~~~
jrockway
The problem is the concept of hijacking DNS in order to show ads or beg for
money on a wireless network. It's like saying that you don't want hands
because when you hit them with a hammer, they start bleeding all over the
place. The solution is to not hit your hand with a hammer, not to not have
hands. Because they're pretty useful except for the whole bleeding thing.

~~~
pooriaazimi
I was merely suggesting that changing DNS servers does not always work well in
real life, most unfortunately.

------
seanconaty
If you want to give feedback about the program, please do so here:

[https://gtldcomment.icann.org/comments-
feedback/programfeedb...](https://gtldcomment.icann.org/comments-
feedback/programfeedback/)

Personally I think the new gTLDs are an incredible abuse of power. They were
cooked up only so ICANN could cash in on being the authority. Having new gTLDs
are going to cause a lot of problems and they are prohibitively expensive.

~~~
larrys
"Having new gTLDs are going to cause a lot of problems"

What problems do you see this creating?

~~~
NeutronBoy
You have a dev box on your network called 'test1'. You can host a dev
environment there and navigate to it at <http://test1> . Works great, until
somebody registers 'test1' as a gTLD. Then you get namespace conflicts.

~~~
jleader
Maybe we (or our software) needs to start requiring the period on the end of
fully-qualified domain names?

That way "test1" is a local name (relative to the default search path), and
"test1." is a TLD.

In theory, that's already the way it works, except that most software treats
the trailing period as optional.

------
necubi
Something I haven't seen discussed: how are web browsers going to handle
somebody typing a generic keyword that is also TLD into the address bar? The
chrome-style omnibar that every browser has since adopted is predicated on the
fact that URLs are fairly easily recognizable.

But if amazon owns "books" and hosts something at <http://books/>, should
browsers navigate to Amazon whenever someone attempts to search for "books"?

[Actually, is it even allowed to host A records directly on a TLD? I've been
reading through RFCs and haven't seen it explicitly disallowed, but nobody
seems to have done it with a currently-available TLD.]

~~~
garethadams
Yes. Tonga turned their TLD `.to` into a domain shortener, although because of
the browser issue you mention it generally had to be accessed via
<http://to./>

However, it hasn't been available for a long time now.

EDIT: As pointed out below, <http://ac/> points to a real website

~~~
Alexandervn
My DNS provider (also on my VPS) can't resolve both domain names.

I can 'dig' the domain names though and at least visit <http://ac/> through
it's IP-address in the A-record (<http://193.223.78.210/>).

------
newobj
I wonder if people are overvaluing these gtlds. Of the general public, how
many people are going to see "great.books" and think "Oh that's a URL I should
type."

~~~
kschults
This is the best example I've seen. We've spent the last 20+ years training
the public that ".com", ".net", etc equals "website". Now that anything could
be a URL, it's going to be a lot more confusing for people.

~~~
icebraining
Which was the reason why bit.ly and del.icio.us never took off.

~~~
jeffgreco
Sure didn't with the general public, especially the latter.

------
fesja
I really agree with Dave, private gTLDs shouldn't be allowed. One thing is to
open new gTLDs as .data (interesting!), .kid, .book and another thing is to
get it and use it for yourself. That's not how the gTLDs should be run. Those
gTLDs have not public interest!

Google and Amazon should be ashamed of themselves for trying to buy .blog,
.book (etc) and just want them for their own interest when those gTLDs, used
wisely, can be really useful.

We should write a public letter to ICANN about this issue and email them
through here [https://gtldcomment.icann.org/comments-
feedback/applicationc...](https://gtldcomment.icann.org/comments-
feedback/applicationcomment/login;jsessionid=0C5AB731B516C8EF6D20594F60EFEE5A)

------
nonameyes
The only people who are in favor of this are those who stand to benefit: ICANN
(who likes elaborate meetings in exotic places), registries, back-end
providers, advisors (lawyers), and registrars (hello larrys). Did I miss
anyone?

Any end users who think this will benefit them are clueless. As this blog post
says most people have not a clue what the above parties are up to.

There are basically two main camps among the applicants: domainers looking to
capitalize on type-in navigation and overpriced sales of key terms, and
companies looking to protect their trademarks. They are not necessarily
mutually exclusive.

ICANN is a non-profit organization. They are tax-free. But they treat
themselves to perks many for-profit companies only dream about; they live a
lavish lifestyle (they just raised 300 million for essentially nothing!) for
an organization that is supposed to be acting in the public interest.

It is one heck of a racket.

There will be non-ICANN DNS with some new features emerging out of this
fiasco. You can bet on that. ICANN has gotten far too greedy. The conflicts of
interest are blatent and insulting.

------
larrys
"Did you think this is how it would work? I sure didn't."

Was there something you read that indicated that what they did wasn't allowed?

"Another angle on this, the ICANN people must have known about these
applications long before they were made public. How could they continue this
process, knowing that is how Google and Amazon interpreted the idea of new
TLDs?"

Everything including the entire process and requirements were public and
anyone could have read and determined the specifics prior to any submissions
(and voiced objections). From my reading there was nothing to prevent this
anymore than if you filed for .winer you could determine only your family
could use it. (Same as you get to decide who uses scripting.com, right?)

At this point anyone can file objections to granting a particular TLD (the
fact that you are the only applicant doesn't guarantee getting granted the
TLD).

So I would suggest to the OP (Dave Winer) that he writes an objection if this
bothers him which will also serve to alert the tech press.

~~~
davewiner
They saw the applications coming in, therefore had information the rest of us
didn't have.

I didn't write an objection, I wrote a blog post.

~~~
icarus_drowning
Your assertion is that the press is missing the story. Which seems accurate.
But wouldn't it be better to file an objection rather than just writing a blog
post about it? Isn't that more useful and practical?

~~~
spinebless
But then the press still would have missed it. And I for example might never
have heard of it.

Also, what makes you think one excludes the other? Why berate the one guy who
at least a.) paid attention and b.) wrote about it, for not also doing c.) and
d.)?

Everybody is still free to file an objection, including the author, and now
actually MORE people who would be inclined to do so, are in a position to do
it (i.e. they heard of it, instead of this going down in silence).

~~~
icarus_drowning
Well, first of all, I'm not berating him, which is why I made an effort to
note that I largely agree with his point here-- in fact, it is because I agree
with him that I thought it was worth pointing out that "raising awareness"
through a blog post is only half the battle-- people are far more inclined to
respond to it if the author is willing to take the effort and _do_ something
about the problem.

Maybe Dave's planning on filing an objection, I don't know. If he is, great.
But it is easy to come off as someone whining on the internet even if you have
a respectable position if the _only_ thing you're doing is complaining.

------
timmaxw
What's the point in having so many top-level domains? I can see the value in
having country codes, because otherwise there would be an international
(probably US-dominated) authority that imposed its power on the Internet, but
why any beyond that?

~~~
fletchowns
More $$ for ICANN

------
xelipe
I found that one individual had applied for 300 gTLDs, Google for 98 including
for .lol and .foo. In reality, each company could have used just one gTLD such
as .google and could have extended it having app.google domains. To Dave's
point, these domains are not necessary open for the public. If google wins,
.dad, they don't have to give you a domain in that gTLD.

~~~
jleader
Many TLDs already have restrictions, and are not 100% "open for the public".
There's been controversy about whether .job is enforcing its restrictions
correctly; .edu is strictly limited to US accredited 4-year secondary
educational institutions; .gov and .mil are "owned" by the US government; many
ccTLDs have restrictions, for example .cn at times has required registrants to
have a business license in China, etc.

~~~
keithpeter
In the UK, .ac.uk is reserved to colleges and universities, .gov.uk to local
and national government &c.

What happens about .books.uk &c? Should be fun.

<http://icannwiki.com/index.php/Kieren_McCarthy>

McCarthy worked for ICANN for a bit, and now he appears to be running some
conferences and a web site

<http://news.dot-nxt.com/author/Kieren%20McCarthy>

~~~
Navarr
This is a bad example only because .ac.uk is technically a second-level
domain, and anything under it would be a third-level subdomain of .ac.uk

Technically speaking, of course.

~~~
keithpeter
I take your point fully. Just musing on the country codes being appended to
the same words as the new top level domains, just to create more confusion.

In the UK some smaller private colleges that are not eligible for .ac.uk
register web sites with the .ac country code.

~~~
Navarr
I understand, but I believe as others have pointed out that ICANN would deny
said applications.

And if the spammers/scammers have enough money to afford the infrastructure
necessary for a TLD, I think we may have a bigger problem.

~~~
keithpeter
My understanding is that books.uk is just a second level domain. It would have
to be Nominet who questioned the application, and there are countries that
appear to take a liberal view of the use of their country code. Have I
misunderstood?

~~~
Navarr
Ah, I missed that point. I just.. see that as a non-issue.

Though someone COULD use books.uk like a domain, I don't see people confusing
it with .books websites.

If they do they have the wrong expectations from ccTLDs

------
citricsquid
The full list of applications is here: <http://gtldresult.icann.org/>

~~~
seaco
You can can find Google's applications by looking under "Charleston Road
Registry Inc.". Amazon is under their own name. Between the two of them, they
have some pretty generic applications. i.e. ".lol", ".mom", ".pet" & ".soy"(?)
etc...

It looks like Google only applied for 3 non-english TLDs. Amazon has closer to
a dozen. Might say something about long term plans.

Microsoft has about a dozen applications, mostly for things they have
trademarked. ".xbox" etc.

Apple is in there as well, but only for ".apple". ".app", ".tunes" were both
applied for by Amazon.

~~~
jwdavidson
"soy" is Spanish for "I am"

------
divtxt
"Tech press ignores expected next phase of ICANN's gTLD sales."

would be a more accurate title.

Like a public good, the dilution costs of issuing gTLDs is externalized and
paid by everyone (other than ICANN).

ICANN has an exclusive license on this valuable virtual real estate, little
accountability and a well demonstrated intention of making all the money they
can.

Don't blame smart buyers who get in early - they're not the ones who created
the situation.

------
abhaga
Reliance, a big Indian conglomerate, wants to own '.indians', presumably
because they own a cricket team called "Mumbai Indians".

~~~
bahularora
This sucks, also VeriSign Sarl has applied for '.कॉम' which is hindi for
'.com' and '.नेट' which is hindi for '.net'

------
bickfordb
Although I think adding more names is good (why not?), it seems like most
people would be better served if the gTLDs were controlled by neutral groups
rather than dollared interests or squatters.

Why not serve the new gTLDs through charities which operate registration and
lookup at cost?

~~~
wmf
The real reason is that charities (especially hypothetical ones) can't justify
massive lobbying budgets.

------
danmaz74
They shouldn't grant generic names as TLD to businesses. They should only
grant their own registered marks: I wouldn't have anything to object to
.google, .facebook etc.

~~~
guscost
Honestly, what are our other options here? Nationalize every semantic TLD in
Webster's Dictionary? Run a lottery to give them away?

Stick with the existing ones?

~~~
danmaz74
Registered trademarks are, well, registered. It would be easy to only grant as
TLDs the trademarks, and only to their owners.

------
Harkins
Well of course it did, they didn't send out press releases.

------
jrockway
Dave Winer likes to complain about everything, but my guess is that this is
not going to be a big deal. Nobody important will use the vanity names, just
like how nobody important uses the non-com/net/org TLDs now. (Even del.ico.us
moved to delicious.com.)

We already have .xxx, .co, .cat, .ly, and so on. Why will adding .dog and .ing
make a difference?

If anything, the people that win are individuals, because there are enough
namespaces for them to get something nice. When .us was opened up, I was happy
to snap up a 7 character (total) domain name for my email. (That would be a 4
letter .com, completely unobtainable by the time I knew how to register
domains.)

I think clever people will use the vanity domains for clever things, and
commercial uses will continue to use .com as always. Considering that the
average user wouldn't know how to access or email a TLD directly anyway, it's
not like Amazon is going to be moving amazon.com to "search". (Actually, even
most of the hardcore hackers I asked didn't know how to visit a TLD directly
either. The key is remembering that all domain names actually end with a .)

------
TazeTSchnitzel
You know, gTLDs, as well as more and more draconian internet legislation, are
making me want to stop using the Internet as we know it, and switch to
something else.

Maybe it's Tor, on top of the present internet. Maybe it's an entirely new
non-Internet network. Maybe it will be some new P2P network.

But if the Internet's freedom and competition disappears, something must
surely replace it.

~~~
icebraining
I fail to see how will the new gTLDs affect the Internet's freedom or
competition.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
It's no longer a level playing field. It used to be, what, $5 secures you a
.com name. Nobody could get a top-level domain, you could only get second- or
third-level domain names, and anyone could get one. And importantly, TLDs were
neutral. They weren't belonging to any company (although operated by one,
usually)

But now, you have the poor man, who can afford a $5 .com, but he can't get a
second-level domain on the new TLDs since they're owned by a company, and it
only lets people have them for a high price or with special conditions. The
poor man also can't afford the $200,000 needed to get a new gTLD.

This creates a two-tier Internet: The rich, big companies can get shiny new
huge chunks of domain space, whilst the smaller companies, organisations and
individuals are simply peasants, subordinates, who can only register on the
second and third levels.

Furthermore, it introduces a huge level of corporate control we haven't seen
before. Yes, .com is operated by VeriSign, but they have to let other people
register .com names. They can't just do whatever they want with it. On the
other hand, Google owns .google, and they can do whatever they want with it.
It's theirs. They own that part of the internet, at the top level, and they
have complete control. If they own .book, and they don't want to give you a
domain, so what, they can not give you one.

~~~
koide
Domain names are just not that important anymore.

Do you really think that not being able to register in a .book will hamper the
sales of your new book? Or not being able to own yourname.blog reduce your
readers in a significant way?

As long as .com, .net, .org and local country registrars keep working as they
always have worked, I hardly see this as damaging.

~~~
abruzzi
>Domain names are just not that important anymore.

Do you think Facebook would be doing as well as it is if it's URL were
<http://www.earthlink.net/~facebook/site/index.php> ?

~~~
mquander
Do you think Facebook would be doing as well if its URL were
<http://www.facebook.horse>? I do.

------
ajasmin
It can only get worse.

Once that first batch of TLD is approved a bunch of large corporations will
try to get their's as well.

Initially the ICANN process will be perceived as bloated. To alleviate this
competing TLD registars will take over so as to drive down the price and
administrative burden.

And ultimately everybody and their dog will have a TLD.

------
Samuel_Michon
I find it most curious that a whopping 13 companies applied for the .app gTLD,
including Amazon and Google, but not the company that started the original App
Store and which sells the most apps. That company showed tremendous restraint
by only applying for the .apple gTLD.

~~~
ktizo
_the company that started the original App Store_

I'm sure Sage Networks haven't registered .apple

[http://trademarkem.com/sage-networks-appstore-trademark-
appl...](http://trademarkem.com/sage-networks-appstore-trademark-application)

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Both Sage and Salesforce applied for the 'Appstore' trademark, not 'App Store'
as Apple uses it. Also, they describe add-ons that one can buy/rent for their
web platform -- that's not what I think of as an 'app'. In any case, I've
found no proof that Sage actually used the name, and Salesforce's add-ons shop
is named AppExchange.

Let's go further back in time. Software programs on NeXTSTEP have had the
extension .app since the first release in 1988. There are plenty of videos
around from that time in which Steve Jobs refers to software programs as
'apps'. At the time, it wasn't a common word at all with Mac and PC users.
Only after Steve Jobs came back to Apple, it entered Apple vocabulary because
he would refer to software programs in that way.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_bundle>

~~~
ja2ke
They've always been at least "Applications" on the Mac, which is probably
where the NeXTSTEP team got the file extension. On DOS/Windows it was and
still is "Executable," though people are starting to casually use "App"
everywhere.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Yes, Macintosh software programs were always in the 'Applications' folder.
However, we never called them 'apps'. Classic MacOS didn't use file
extensions, programs had a 'type code', 'APPL' (ResEdit allowed you to view
those codes and edit the resources within an application). At the time, when
we used a short word for software programs, we'd call them 'progs'. This
changed when Apple acquired NeXT. The Yellow Box software programs in Rhapsody
were the first ones I saw that had .app file extensions, and when I went to a
preview of that next gen OS in 1997, Steve Jobs repeatedly called them 'apps'.

------
unreal37
OMG I tweeted this before 8am and it's 6pm now and there's no news stories
about it.

What's the difference between Google keeping .blog for itself, and some other
company charging $50,000 for their normal registration fee? (Some already do
that.) Not much.

------
guscost
Anyone who sees Google and Amazon as AI companies should know that this is the
next logical step. Imagine owning and selling _the_ authoritative _meaning_ of
Modern English and those valuations start making a little more sense.

------
xorbyte
I think the net effect of this explosion in TLDs is that the individual appeal
of each will diminish, as the novelty wears off. This will simply accelerate
the erosion of the address as the primary means of access of a web resource
(from a consumer point of view.)

I see some obvious parallels between domains and TLDs in how they become
limited to singular entities. After all, it's non-trivial to obtain a
scripting.com subdomain for myself, and I see no reason why someone is more
entitled to such a subdomain than I am, besides being first to have registered
the domain itself.

------
measure2xcut1x
I think a more interesting story is the gTLDs applied for by Dominion
Enterprises.

\- Apartments \- Autos \- Boats \- Cars \- Forsale \- Homes \- Motorcycles \-
Rent \- Yachts

I wonder what percent of US GDP sales of those products represent.

------
kjhughes
All gTLD expansion plans are misguided, especially the recent flood.

Being able to register a domain for ~$10 on a first-come-first-served basis
(modulo exceptions, which have been handled reasonably well by UDRP) is
wonderfully accessible to everyone. gTLDs are prohibitively expensive to most.
But beyond the money matters...

The simplicity and restrictiveness of .com made it attractive. The .kitchen-
sink direction -- blowing out .net and .org in the worse ways -- creates a
mess.

------
yinhm
I'd did a little analysis for fun, found Google and Amazon both applied: APP,
BOOK, BUY, CLOUD, DEV, DRIVE, FREE, GAME, MAIL, MAP, MOVIE, MUSIC, PLAY,
SEARCH, SHOP, SHOW, SPOT, STORE, TALK, VIP, WOW, YOU.

See more on my blog(Chinese) if you interested:
[http://yinhm.appspot.com/2012/06/new-gtld-current-
applicatio...](http://yinhm.appspot.com/2012/06/new-gtld-current-application-
status-stats)

------
SeoxyS
So Google and Amazon are wasting their money on top-level domains that aren't
going to stick… It's not like the situation is any different from being able
to grab blog.com first, except you pay a lot of money for the privilege of not
having to suffix it with ".com."

------
cdooh
The fact that people still search for facebook on search engines makes this a
big deal because once users get used to finding books at .book and blogs on
.blog every competitor will have to fight against that mindset.

~~~
icebraining
And when people are used to search on Google.com or look for books on Amazon,
other search engines and book stores will have to fight that mindset too. It's
very much the same.

------
melvinmt
> Amazon plans to do the same with .search. So if you have a search site and
> it's not Amazon's you can't be part of .search.

Am I the only one who doesn't understand why it is Amazon - and not Google -
who wants to have .search?

~~~
tmcdonald
Both of them have applied for .search.

> The .search gTLD provides Google with the opportunity to differentiate its
> Google Search products and services by linking them to a unique gTLD. Google
> will be able to quickly distinguish new products and services it develops
> and⁄or acquires by offering them in the proposed gTLD.

> The mission of the .SEARCH registry is to provide a unique and dedicated
> platform for Amazon while simultaneously protecting the integrity of its
> brand and reputation.

> A .SEARCH registry will:

> • Provide Amazon with additional controls over its technical architecture,
> offering a stable and secure foundation for online communication and
> interaction.

> • Provide Amazon a further platform for innovation.

> • Enable Amazon to protect its intellectual property rights.

Basically, only for their own commercial gains. The other two applicants want
.search to be a place for consolidation of search related domains, which seems
like an absolute pipe dream.

------
J_Darnley
Who says "the press" missed it? I saw it mentioned on Slashdot, Techdirt and a
few Australian sites (they seem particularly interested). Plus the few links I
saw here.

~~~
meej
USA Today published an article about it in their Tech section on Wednesday, I
would think they're about as mainstream as the media gets in the US. I agree
that this story doesn't really seem to have been overlooked.

<http://usat.ly/KTMAB5>

------
suhastech
I think they should be only allowed to grab they trademark domains. (.amazon,
.google)

Anything generic should be allowed to the public. Maybe the rights to sell can
be sold a company.

------
SquareWheel
I'd really like to see wildcard TLDs, and none owned by corporations. I don't
know if that's technologically feasible, but I would far prefer that to this
mess.

------
gesman
.accountant ? .afamilycompany ? Who in their right mind would want to build a
website based on such a nonsense extensions?

I'd vote for more 2-letter short extensions, such as .js

Gleb

------
olalonde
This is news? Did anyone really expect every gTLDs buyers to become
registrars?

------
adventureful
None of this matters at all. The press shouldn't be worrying about it.

If you have a killer product, any number of zillions of domains still
available will do the trick.

Or go buy an even better one for $250 to $1,500 from SEDO.

How about a .fm or .ws domain? Or .IO and so on.

No time or effort should be directed toward worrying about this. Put your
brain back on your product. Someone owning .books or .meme is no more
interesting than someone owning books.com or meme.biz. Either your product is
amazing or it isn't.

When you can beat Google by owning search.search (how about search.com), let
me know.

~~~
kjhughes
You're right that it doesn't create any insurmountable problems, but it does
matter. It defines new rules for the domain name game, and domain names are an
important piece of a company's public face.

~~~
adventureful
The best thing that could come out of this, is the developers and engineers
that actually build the Internet, Web, and mobile Web, and make it all matter
--- demonstrate that this is all bullshit by ignoring the new domain expansion
and showing that it isn't valuable or necessary.

