First impressions of the “dot.anything” world

• Author: Jason Miller
• Position: Fellow, WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – which oversees the Domain Name System (DNS) – has predicted that its “New gTLD Program” PDF, New gTLD Program will transform the way people use the Internet by introducing competition, choice and innovation. At the dawn of the expansion, the author of a 2012 WIPO Magazine article on The Evolving Domain Name Landscape wrote: “Only time will tell what the impact of ICANN’s introduction of over 1,000 new gTLDS will be on brand owners and the internet-using public.”

What have the last three years revealed about ICANN’s DNS expansion plans? Have ICANN’s predictions been borne out, or has its New gTLD Program fizzled? The answer may differ for domain name prospectors, the general public and brand owners.

The 2012 expansion

ICANN began accepting applications for new gTLDs in January 2012. Entities ranging from brands (“.hsbc”) to municipal governments (“.nyc”) to non-profits (“.hiv”) applied.

ICANN received 1,930 applications from 60 countries and territories. Around 47 percent of applicants were North American, 35 percent European and 16 percent were from the Asia-Pacific region. South American and African applicants accounted for the remaining 2 percent. Reflecting the Internet’s global reach, ICANN received 116 “internationalized” applications for gTLDs in, among others, Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Devanagari and Greek script. These include, for example, .公司 (Chinese for “.company”), and .онлайн (Russian for “.online”).

The first of these new gTLDs (. شبكة or .shabaka – Arabic for “.web/.network”) went live in October 2013, and as of now over 700 TLDs from the 2012 round are live on the internet.

Building new gTLD awareness

ICANN launched the 2012 program ostensibly to increase consumer choice, in part by facilitating competition among gTLD operators (known as “registries”). Would-be domain name registrants are no longer limited to a narrow range of options to the right of the dot. An attorney, for example, can now hang a digital shingle in the “.lawyer” or even “.abogado,” “.attorney,” “.esq,” or “.law” registries.

In the newly crowded domain name market, registries must promote their name spaces to survive. Some tout the expressive potential of their offerings. The “.sucks” registry, for example, has put up a billboard outside Boston’s Fenway Park baseball stadium proclaiming “NEWYORK.SUCKS,” using the longstanding sports rivalry between the two cities as an eye-catching example...