Way back in the early days of the web, I remember the domain name gold rush. It was just like the Gold Rush of 1848, with domain name prospectors racing across a virtual country of possible top-level domain names (TLDs) to try and find the gold hidden among them. What constituted domain gold? Anything that anyone else might want—really, really badly.
Brand names were at a premium. So were simple names. CNET's founder Halsey Minor shrewdly snapped up "TV", "News", "Download" and more. Any domain that described a thing was of high value and any brand name that was a domain was soon contested. You see, in the early days of the World Wide Web, no one thought about how it should really be the intellectual property (IP) owner who registers the matching domains. For example, McDonalds.com was not, initially, owned by the restaurant chain. "Whitehouse.com," is still not owned by the White House. Bill Clinton did not own "WilliamJClinton" and Nike didn't own "JustDoIt.net." This wasn't really surprising, considering how slowly old-world brands (and people) moved online. Some weren't even sure there was value in putting their brands on the Web. No one in 1996 foresaw that the little online bookstore Amazon.com would turn into the global online retail giant it is today.
These legal battles cost companies and celebrities millions and made squatters an equal amount of money. Eventually, most major brands found a way to get their domains. Now, ICANN threatens to start the whole thing over again. They just introduced rules that will add an almost unlimited number of top level domains (these are the .coms, .orgs and .nets of the world). There are currently 22. When ICANN is finished, there could be millions.
Reports I read noted that brands are already lining up for their own TLDs: Coke will have ".coke". I imagine McDonalds will acquire ".McDonalds." I can feel the Internet gold rush starting again already. However, where the mid-'90s rush required little more than a pick-axe and a horse-drawn wagon, this prospecting will require the equivalent of a Lamborghini and a safe-cracker. ICANN wants to charge almost $200,000 for the application and $25,000 in annual fees. To put this in perspective, I pay approximately $35 a year for my LanceUlanoff.com domain.
This will deter private individuals from squatting on valuable TLDs, but it will not stop companies from grabbing up all sorts of TLDs. All they needs is the money and the ability to prove they deserve the right to own ".ketchup". I use this example, because there may be a flaw in this plan. While most individuals cannot afford ICANN's new steep charges, corporations can—in multiples. I bet they'll find a way to snap up as many of them as they can and then the fighting will begin. You see, it's obvious who should own ".capitolone", but not who would get ".money".
These battles, which I fully expect to witness, could be great fun to watch, but could also drag the ICANN into a never-ending series of decisions it doesn't want to deal with.
The other side of this is the equation is why ICANN thinks it can charge so much. Are they saying that no average person should have the right to own a TLD? I really do not want ".ulanoff" because I think www.lanceulanoff.ulanoff looks ridiculous, but maybe I would want www.editing.ulanoff. With this pricing and annual fee plan, there's no way I could have that or www.home.lanceulanoff. ICANN may believe it's heading off lots of confusion and a hoard of greedy squatters, but I think they're starting a fire in the corporate world and handcuffing everyone else.
Leaving aside the common man's access to these new TLDs, the introduction of an unlimited number of them—for everything from people to places, companies, to major organizations—will reignite a more basic gold rush. It won't be as intense as the first one, because every so-called great domain on these new TLDs will be little more than a subset of the parent. You can get "news," but it'll be under a new ".NJ" domain. In other words, the number of prospectors rushing to dig up that nugget will probably be limited to those with interests in New Jersey.
When these new TLDs start going on sale in January 2012, it'll be a new beginning for the Web, with big companies driving their safe-crackers in Lamborghinis to ICANN, and countless small-time prospectors searching for domain nuggets in their own backyards. It makes me kind of nervous, but I'm also looking forward to watching the action. [/p]
