Big Players in the gTLD Applications

The application period is over and now ICANN has published the nearly 2000 applications for new Global Top Level Domans (gTLD).

For those unfamiliar with the terminology, a Top Level Domain is what goes after the dot in a domain name,  By far the most common TLD is .com, but you no doubt have come across others such as .net, .org, and so forth.  There are also several uncommonly used ones such as .name, .aero and .pro.  In addition there are a large number of two character country code Top Level Domains such as .us, .cn, .uk, and so forth.

With the new application process, ICANN signaled that it was willing to greatly expand the number of .TLD, allow foreign language character sets, and permit brand names as .TLDs.

This caused many companies to feel that they had to register their trade marks as TLDs as a defensive move just to keep somebody else from doing so, even if they had no plans on using them.

Some companies promised to submit hundreds of applications.  In reality, it appears that only one broke into three digits.  Google, under the name Charleston Road Registry Inc., had 101 applications.  Behind them was Amazon with 76. Third was an investor group called Top Level Holdings Limited.

Microsoft had 11 applications covering their major product lines such as .microsoft, .windows, .office and .xbox.

Apple had just one: .apple.  Apparently Apple felt, likely correctly, that their reputation for zealously protecting their trademarks would dissuade anybody from trying to register anything like .mac, .itunes, .iphone, or .ipad.  None of those names had any applications for registration.

Here are the 101 terms that Google applied for.

And here are the strings which Amazon Applied for