New improved domain names are years too late - Company Business and Marketing

ICANN's (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) decision to expand generic top-level domains (gTLD) is out of touch and date, but the organisation has reached the point of no return.

The introduction of new gTLDs has been under discussion for 10 years, and in that time other services have been developed that address the shortage of good domain names available and which provide additional benefits.

But, after receiving more than $2 million in application fees, ICANN is intent on announcing the new approved names that are to be made available before the end of the year.

ICANN is a private, non-profit organisation approved by the Clinton administration in late 1998 to oversee the domain name system. In July this year the organisation agreed to introduce new gTLDs and invited interested parties to suggest possible options. Submissions closed on 2 October and final decisions are expected to be made in November. Likely new suffixes may include shop and bank.

Those who submitted an application to run a new gTLD registry had to pay ICANN $10,000, no small sum, to cover "administration and due diligence". There have also been other cost barriers, not least the requirement to have a minimum of $70,000 available in working capital.

Once again the best domain names may end up with large organisations who have the money to register every possible permutation, or with those quickest off the mark--many of which will almost certainly sell them.

The issue of how to protect trademark holders from cyber-squatters in the new gTLDs has not been resolved, and businesses are therefore likely to register names for brands they already have that end in .com, org or .co.uk.

However, there will be increasing scope for warehousing i.e. the registration of domain names that are likely to be attractive to a wide market, for example the generic names business.com or banks.com. A Jerusalem-based company has taken this a step further by setting up an online investment bank for website names--but ventures like this are only possible if you have the capital to take the risk.

I don't believe anyone should pay over the odds for a generic or catchy web address. People who register domain names are no longer techies, web heads or cyber-squatters but businesses and individuals who want to use internet technology to benefit and build their own online brand--and why shouldn't they have their own catchy website address?

As far as I am concerned, ICANN has missed the boat. The web has evolved and new domain name services are not only providing more interesting names for businesses and consumers but also offering traffic statistics to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising and hyperlinks in driving visitors to a site. For example, redirection services offer website addresses selected from hundreds of descriptive names. Businesses or individuals who currently have incomprehensible web site addresses or who can't get the .com address they want can use a snappy and memorable alternative such as buy.at/nameofbusiness or else stop.at/nameofbusiness. Internet users typing in the web site address are then automatically directed to the location of the web site, wherever it is hosted.

Such services have the additional benefit of allowing web site owners to track the source of referrals and enables them to benefit from knowing which online ads and hyperlinks are directing most traffic to their sites.

Richard Armitage is chief executive at Internet specialist Rename Ltd., Newcastle, England.

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