Dot-Whatever

Millions of new Internet domain names could become available this year. Whether that will be a marketing opportunity or a brand-protection nightmare depends on who’s talking.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which coordinates the Internet’s address system, intends to launch a new process this year that would allow the incorporation of any top-level domain (that is, the suffix that comes after the period in an Internet address) from three to 63 characters long. So .bank, .target, .cured, and .luxuryondemand are all possibilities.

A person or organization that applies to operate a top-level domain (TLD) would pay an application fee of $185,000 to ICANN, plus annual fees after that if approved. In return, the operator would determine who gets domain names (the part of the address right before the period) within that top-level domain.

ICANN’s Jason Keenan says the change will allow for more innovation, choice, and competition on the Internet. Companies that operate a top-level domain could customize its name to suit their branding or marketing needs. The new system might also allow the use of non-Roman characters, like Chinese or Arabic. The Internet’s English-speaking bias has been a sore point with some users.

Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing in Spring Park, sees a new revenue source for companies that have the means to operate TLDs. “An entity can buy a generic TLD, like .tv, and then sell domain names in that TLD to hundreds of companies, like TV stations, that might want that extension,” he says.

Control over a top-level domain also could give greater trademark and brand security to companies, but at the same time, make trademark enforcement harder, according to attorney Ryan Kaatz at the Minneapolis law firm Faegre & Benson.

“An applicant can register a TLD that is confusingly similar to that of a trademark holder, Kaatz says. “For example, someone could register .g00gle, with two zeroes.” And with so many new top-level domains and domain names being introduced, policing all the new sites would be an overwhelming task.

Cost is another concern. Domain names can be registered now for as little at $9.99 annually through outlets such as Go Daddy, unless there’s an auction for a particular name that drives the price up.