ICANN Announces Requested gTLDs

ICANN LogoA week shy of a year ago now ICANN revealed a process to allow organizations to submit applications for new generic top level domain extensions (in addition to the .com, .net, .org and 18 others excluding ccTLDs). You can get more detail in my post Make Your Own TLD? (I want .bacon).

Today ICANN has revealed the list of gTLDs for which random people and businesses have applied. During the January 12 — May 30, 2012 window to submit applications, 1,930 came in.

The process wasn’t without some controversy, as when 87 business associations and companies banded together to oppose the process, as outlined in this November 2011 press release: Eighty-Seven Major National and International Business Associations and Companies Join with ANA, Forming the Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight (CRIDO), to Oppose ICANN’s Top-level Domain Expansion Program

Despite that, the ICANN process has been moving along. If, like me, you are curious about the gTLDs for which people are vying, you can get the full list as a CSV file from ICANN, or you can search through the list on the ICANN site.

Of the 1,930 gTLDs, 116 of them are in character sets that the average English-speaking American won’t ever see or be able to use (such as Chinese, Cyrillic, and so on). As you go through them, you’ll see lots of brand and company names, and even a few slogans in the mix. You’ll see some cases where a brand name (such as .youtube) is not registered by the brand owner (Google, in this case), or perhaps ones where the target audience seems a little too targeted (such as .aarp).

Selected Duplicates

Of the remaining (the ones I can read), some of them seem odd, some of them seem too long to type, and some of them are duplicates which means an auction process will kick in to determine who should get rights. Of the over 750 duplicates, here are some of the ones that stood out to me (or just look at my favorites):

String Applicant Location Region
APP .APP REGISTRY INC. KY EUR
APP Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google) US NA
APP dot App Limited GI EUR
APP Webera Inc. AE AP
APP NU DOT CO LLC US NA
APP Amazon EU S.à r.l. LU EUR
APP Lone Maple, LLC US NA
APP Dot App LLC US NA
APP DotApp Inc. US NA
APP TRI Ventures, Inc. US NA
APP Afilias Limited IE EUR
APP Merchant Law Group LLP CA NA
APP Top Level Domain Holdings Limited VG EUR
BLOG BET Inc. JP AP
BLOG Afilias Domains No. 1 Limited IE EUR
BLOG Top Level Design, LLC US NA
BLOG Corn Shadow, LLC US NA
BLOG Personals TLD Inc. AE AP
BLOG Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google) US NA
BLOG Merchant Law Group LLP CA NA
BLOG PRIMER NIVEL S.A. PA LAC
BLOG Top Level Domain Holdings Limited VG EUR
BOOK R.R. Bowker LLC US NA
BOOK Top Level Domain Holdings Limited VG EUR
BOOK Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google) US NA
BOOK Global Domain Registry Pty Ltd AU AP
BOOK Bronze Registry Limited GI EUR
BOOK NU DOT CO LLC US NA
BOOK Amazon EU S.à r.l. LU EUR
BOOK Double Bloom, LLC US NA
BOOK DotBook, LLC US NA
CASINO dot Casino Limited GI EUR
CASINO Binky Sky, LLC US NA
CASINO Afilias Limited IE EUR
CASINO dotBeauty LLC US NA
CLOUD Symantec Corporation US NA
CLOUD Top Level Domain Holdings Limited VG EUR
CLOUD Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google) US NA
CLOUD Amazon EU S.à r.l. LU EUR
CLOUD Dash Cedar, LLC US NA
CLOUD ARUBA S.p.A. IT EUR
CLOUD CloudNames AS NO EUR
DESIGN STARTING DOT FR EUR
DESIGN BET Inc. JP AP
DESIGN Top Level Domain Holdings Limited VG EUR
DESIGN Top Level Design, LLC US NA
DESIGN NU DOT CO LLC US NA
DESIGN Black Avenue, LLC US NA
DESIGN Design Trend Registry Inc. CA NA
DESIGN Uniregistry, Corp. KY EUR
DOCS Microsoft Corporation US NA
DOCS Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google) US NA
FREE Top Level Domain Holdings Limited VG EUR
FREE Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google) US NA
FREE Amazon EU S.à r.l. LU EUR
FREE Over Keep, LLC US NA
FREE Uniregistry, Corp. KY EUR
GAY Top Level Domain Holdings Limited VG EUR
GAY Top Level Design, LLC US NA
GAY United TLD Holdco Ltd. KY EUR
GAY dotgay llc US NA
MAIL Afilias Domains No. 2 Limited, IE EUR
MAIL Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google) US NA
MAIL 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH DE EUR
MAIL Amazon EU S.à r.l. LU EUR
MAIL Victor Dale, LLC US NA
MAIL WhitePages TLD LLC US NA
MAIL GMO Registry, Inc. JP AP
MAP United TLD Holdco Ltd. KY EUR
MAP Amazon EU S.à r.l. LU EUR
MAP Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google) US NA
MOBILE Amazon EU S.à r.l. LU EUR
MOBILE Pixie North, LLC US NA
MOBILE Dish DBS Corporation US NA
MOVIE Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google) US NA
MOVIE dot Movie Limited GI EUR
MOVIE Webdeus Inc. AE AP
MOVIE NU DOT CO LLC US NA
MOVIE Amazon EU S.à r.l. LU EUR
MOVIE New Frostbite, LLC US NA
MOVIE Motion Picture Domain Registry Pty Ltd AU AP
MOVIE Dish DBS Corporation US NA
MUSIC DotMusic Inc. AE AP
MUSIC DotMusic / CGR E-Commerce Ltd CY AP
MUSIC dot Music Limited GI EUR
MUSIC Amazon EU S.à r.l. LU EUR
MUSIC Victor Cross US NA
MUSIC Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google) US NA
MUSIC .music LLC US NA
MUSIC Entertainment Names Inc. VG EUR
NEWS DotNews Inc. AE AP
NEWS dot News Limited GI EUR
NEWS Amazon EU S.à r.l. LU EUR
NEWS Hidden Bloom, LLC US NA
NEWS Uniregistry, Corp. KY EUR
NEWS Merchant Law Group LLP CA NA
NEWS PRIMER NIVEL S.A. PA LAC

Favorites

And now some of my favorites:

So there is a proposal for .ketchup, but nothing for .bacon? Internets, you have let me down.

Related

  1. Icann [sic] reveals new internet top-level domain name claims at BBC
  2. Here comes .NETFLIX: New Web domain applications revealed at CNN Money
  3. ICANN unveils new domain names at net Magazine.
  4. Make Your Own TLD? (I want .bacon) by me

Update: 11:41am

I see a lot of traffic coming to this post from people looking for “Charleston Road Registry.” A couple minutes in the ICANN application shows that not only does that entity have its address at Google HQ, but the contact is Google’s policy analyst. From the application (section 18(a)):

Charleston Road Registry is an American company, wholly owned by Google, which was established to provide registry services to the Internet public. […] As discussed further in the responses to questions 23 and 31, Charleston Road Registry intends to outsource all critical registry functions to Google Registry Services.

I have updated the table above accordingly.

Update: May 8, 2013

The marketing manager for names.co.uk guest-writes a post at .net Magazine (“Google sets precedent for new gTLDs to be open“) detailing how Google may be opening up any of the new gTLDs it acquires, instead of restricting their use to just Google brands. The writer hopes others will follow Google’s lead.

2 Comments

Reply

I just spent about an hour looking for a way to make a domain out of my last name, ie “.bacon” , or register a website “evan.bacon” if it already exists. Then i found your articles about this, including This cracked me up. Promise me you will contact me if you get it, I will pay good money to be hosted :)

Evan Bacon; . Permalink
Reply

Oops messed up the formatting in my original comment. Corrected version:

I just spent about an hour looking for a way to make a domain out of my last name, ie “.bacon” , or register a website “evan.bacon” if it already exists. Then i found your articles about this, including Make Your Own TLD? (I want .bacon). This cracked me up. Promise me you will contact me if you get it, I will pay good money to be hosted :)

Evan Bacon; . Permalink

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