ICANN kills Google’s dotless domain search dreams

DNP ICANN blocks Google's dotless domain dreams

We’d like to imagine that somewhere in Mountain View, a group of high-level tech execs are giving ICANN the stink eye. After all, the organization has recently passed a resolution that prohibits dotless domains, effectively squashing Google’s dreams to own and operate http://search. This development follows a study ICANN published a few days ago, detailing how hard it’ll be to mitigate security and stability risks that could come with the unusual domains. Google had big plans to turn http://search into a service where users could choose among a number of search websites that registered to be a part of it. Now that the one-word wonder is no longer an option for Page and Co., the company has to make do with .search (with a dot), assuming its bidding spree for a pile of gTLDs pays off.

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Source: Domain Name Wire, Domain Incite

Early objections over generic TLDs throw the .book at Amazon, Google

Early objections over generic TLDs throw the book at Amazon, Google

Technology companies went wild bidding on generic top-level domains (gTLDs) once the opportunity presented itself. That seemingly impulsive behavior hasn’t sat well with the Government Advisory Committee, which just posted a list of its member countries’ initial 250 objections over the internet gold rush. While the list is broad, Amazon and Google (under a Charleston Road Registry proxy) have received a disproportionate amount of the flak: Australia, for example, isn’t happy that far-reaching terms like .book and .search might be owned by individual companies. The resistance automatically puts the perceived offenders’ backs to the wall — they have to either make a good case as to why they need a disputed gTLD or risk losing both the domain as well as 20 percent of the refunded claiming fee. ICANN remains optimistic that the first gTLDs will still go into use by May, but it’s entirely possible that the final list will be much thinner than what we saw in June.

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Via: BBC, The Next Web

Source: ICANN