Google, Amazon lead rush for new Web domain suffixes in
bids to ICANN
By Hayley Tsukayama and Peter Whoriskey, Published: June
13
Amazon and Google are staking claims to large swaths of
the Internet under a new system for labeling Web domains, bolstering their
ability to control traffic as the Web expands beyond the realms of “.com,”
“.gov” and “.org.”
The bids by those companies to acquire new domain names
such as “.book,” “.shop” and “.movie” renewed fears among competitors that a
powerful few will dominate the Internet marketplace of the future.
A slate of roughly 2,000 new Web suffixes, including
“.app” and “.sex,” was revealed Wednesday by the nonprofit organization tasked
with regulating domain names, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers. The group announced last year that it would take applications for new
domain names to foster growth and competition online. The new domains are
scheduled to go into effect next year.
“We’re standing at the cusp of a new era of online
innovation,” said Rod Beckstrom, president of the group, known as ICANN.
If Internet users embrace the new domains, the companies
that control them could bear considerable influence on Web traffic.
Amazon has applied to control the “.book” and “.movie”
names, for example, meaning that anyone else selling those items would have to
get the company’s permission to be listed within that domain.
The National Retail Federation had urged that oversight
of such generic domain names be given to impartial entities rather than
individual companies.
“The results for now are as potentially unfair to
businesses and consumers as we feared they might be,” said Mallory Duncan,
general counsel for the trade group.
For example, if a grocery store controls the “.grocery”
suffix, it could theoretically exclude competitors from listing their sites
there.
Duncan said consumers may not realize that the new
domains are under private control and that the open competition that prevails
within the “.com” realm may not exist within, say, “.grocery.”
“Consumers going to that domain may not realize that all
of their shopping is being done with one company instead of a competitive
market,” Duncan said.
Google was among the most prolific applicants, seeking to
register 101 names at an application cost of $18.7 million. Never lacking in
its quest for virtual completeness, the company is seeking to control “.mom,”
“.dad” and “.kid.”
Amazon applied for 76 new names, including “.amazon” and
“.zappos.”
The expansion of Web domains has the potential to make
over how surfers conceive of the Internet. Until now, entities have largely
broken down by type of institution: “.gov” for government agencies, “.com” for
businesses and “.org” for other groups.
The new suffixes add a potentially confusing array of
categories. Among the many that have been formally proposed are “.sucks,”
“.rip” and “.vip.” While some might sound like jokes, the fact that the
application fee for each is $185,000 tends to keep things serious.
Applicants were heavily concentrated in North America
(911), Europe (675) and the Asia-Pacific region (303). There were only 17
applications from Africa, which raised questions about whether the cost of an
application was too high to be equitable.
Many of the potential new domain names are being sought
by multiple companies. The most popular was “.app” with 13 applications, but
even “.sucks” is the prize in a three-way contest.
The applicants must first pass an initial review by
ICANN. If groups competing for a domain name cannot reach an agreement among
themselves, the names will be auctioned off.
ICANN said it expects the first new address to go live in
2013.
What’s not clear, however, is whether consumers will
embrace any of the new names.
“It’s going to present users with a lot of new choices,”
said Brian Cute, chief executive of the Public Interest Registry, which runs
the “.org” domain. “If you have 50 choices of toothpaste, the average consumer
is going to the brands they know. That could be the case here.”
Art Brodsky, a spokesman for Public Knowledge, said:
“It’s a matter of changing the ingrained habits of millions of people on the
Web. Maybe they can do that, and maybe they can’t.”
Even so, many companies are bracing for potential changes
to their business.
Advertisers have criticized ICANN’s proposal, saying
their concerns were not adequately addressed during the initial review process.
Advertisers and others have raised concerns that companies will have to have
several defensive addresses — negative-sounding names that the company
purchases to keep a rival from exploiting them — to keep counterfeiters at bay.
Beckstrom said Wednesday that ICANN has added several
protective provisions, including the option for rapid takedown when brand
holders feel their intellectual property may be threatened. ICANN also reserves
the right to take a domain name back if there is significant abuse.
Others, however, are bracing for the giants of the
Internet to seize even more power over its commerce.
“It would be wrong on so many levels for Amazon to
acquire either the ‘.book’ or ‘.author’ top-level domains,” said Paul Aiken of
the Author’s Guild. “Their ambitions to extend their monopoly in bookselling
have long been abundantly clear, and with their cash, their technical knowledge,
this could be yet another way in which they’ve extended their control over the
book market. This really makes no sense.”
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