This Thursday, the internet’s regulators will vote and ultimately decide whether the strict rules on top level domain names, such as .com or .uk, can finally be relaxed.
If the plans are agreed, it will have a huge impact on the address system, as companies will be allowed to turn their brands into domain names. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) oversees the domain name system and has been working towards opening up net addresses for the last three years. They have said that any string of letters will be allowed to be registered as a domain, but there will be an independent arbitration process for people with grounds for objection (who hopefully won’t treat every possibility with rejection as they did .xxx – although I’m guessing they are going to). However, hundreds of new domain names are expected to be created by the end of the year, rising to thousands in the future.
While there are clear reasons as to why these plans have come about: a) the Internet has changed so much since the original address system was established that this system is dated; and b) existing domains are running out; I can’t really see many existing brands and companies actually using them. Maybe in the future once a few others have tried and tested the new domains they will start to catch on, but to start with I think most brands will stick with what they’ve got. After all, brands know that consumers are familiar with their current addresses and that their consumers know exactly where to find them. For example, if I want to visit a site for a brand, say Nokia, the chances are I’ll type in nokia.com and that’s where the site will be. I don’t want to have to start guessing at nokia.nok, mobile.nokia or nokia.nokia (which looks stupid anyway!). Also, changing domain names to turn your brand into a domain will have implications for your SEO. Well established and search engine friendly sites are not going to benefit from starting from scratch – especially taking into account Google’s 6 month sandbox period.
However for some sites, I think the .brand domain will work really well – .ebay is a domain that it’s suggested will be introduced and this make a lot of sense for them. Individual store owners/sellers could then have their own address at .ebay, so for example, my clothes range could be on sale at laurawear.ebay. This system would also work well for other huge sites that have individual pages or subdomains – Facebook members could each have their own address at .facebook.
Another interested point is that the plan would also allow for the new domain names to be internationalised, and so could be written in scripts for Asian and Arabic languages. And again, like most things these days, it will all come down to money in the end. Icann are still working through how much the application fee to register a domain name will be, but it is expected to be at least several thousand dollars. And, in cases where there is a dispute over a domain, there will be an auction and it will go to the highest bidder.
I guess we’ll just have to await the outcome on Thursday to find out whether the rules are relaxed, but hopefully they will be because it will be interesting to see how brands react to the new possibilities.