The Good Ole Days of “.com” Are Fading Fast

You’re starting a business and (after conducting a thorough trademark search) have settled on a Very Clever Name. You log in to your favorite domain registry and snap up VeryCleverName.com. Your budget is limited, but you know it’s good practice to build as extensive a domain portfolio as possible, so you also purchase variations of VeryCleverName .org, .info., .biz and maybe even .tv.

Those extenders (.com, .org, etc.) are called generic top level domains, or gTLDs. They exist and are administered by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. (ICANN basically rules the internet and, in that respect, rather resembles the Starfleet Federation.)

In its 10-year existence, ICANN has approved 21 gTLDs. Shortly, that number will increase from 21 to…infinity.

ICANN is developing a system that will permit individual applicants to obtain customized gTLDs. Currently, all gTLDs are in Roman characters that resemble English; ICANN notes that “non-English speakers will have the opportunity to express the whole of a domain name in characters that look like their language.”

ICANN estimates that applying for one’s own gTLD will cost approximately $185,000.

A world with unlimited gTLDs will have enormously complex implications for trademark owners and small businesses. ICANN is accepting comments on the proposed new system until December 8, 2008.