Business dominates domain name bids _stuff.co.nz
Amazon.com wants “.joy,” Google wants “.love” and L’Oreal wants “.beauty.”
Big brands are behind hundreds of proposals for new Internet addresses, including scores for generic terms such as “cruise,” “.kids” and “.tires.”
If approved, Amazon could use “.author” in an attempt to dominate online bookselling, while Google could use “.love” to collect registration fees from its rivals.
Amazon and Google also are vying for “.app” and “.music,” while the wine company Gallo Vineyards Inc. wants “.barefoot.”
It’s all part of the largest expansion of the Internet address system since its creation in the 1980s, a process likely to cause headaches for some companies while creating vast opportunities for others.
The organisation in charge of Internet addresses, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, announced the proposals for Internet suffixes Wednesday (US time). A suffix is the “.com” part in a domain name.
The bids now go through a review that could take months or years. Up to 1,000 suffixes could be added each year.
There were 1,930 proposals for 1,409 different suffixes. The bulk of proposals that met the May 30 deadline came from North America and Europe. About 100 were for suffixes in non-English characters, including Chinese, Arabic and Thai.
