For too long websites have been identified with generic suffixes such as .com, .org, and .net.
For too long websites have been identified with generic suffixes such as .com, .org, and .net. Then there are country specific suffixes like .in, .uk, and .tv. But on Wednesday the world took a big step towards making the internet more subjective, when the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) revealed a list of 1,930 contenders for new generic top level domain names (gTLDs).
Of these, 21 have been registered by Indian entities. These include companies such as Bharti (.airtel and .bharti), Infosys (.infosys and .infy) and SBI (.sbi and.statebank). Apart from applying for company specific domain names such as .reliance and .ril, Reliance has also made a bid for .indians, seeking, perhaps, to give Mumbai Indians team a boost in branding.
However, none of the government departments applied for any gTLD. Did we miss out on an opportunity to apply for a domain name like, say, .mumbai or .bengaluru? “India is way too behind when it comes to internet penetration,” said Sandeep Ramchandani, director, strategic partnerships, Directi, which itself has applied 31 gTLDs. “If someone applies for, say, .newyork or .paris, there would be a lot of takers for such domain names. I don’t think here the adoption would have been very high,” he added.
Interestingly, Verisign has applied for .com and .net in the Devanagri script. “Verisign currently manages .com and .net. Perhaps they think that regionalisation is going to be the next big wave on the internet, wherein Hindi-speaking users would prefer typing .com in the Devnagri script,” said Ramchandani.
The highest number of applications came from North America (911), followed by Europe (675), Asia Pacific (303), Latin America (24) and Africa (17). Over the next several months, ICANN will review the applications, and if they meet their criteria, approve them. The process will be a bit more complicated in cases where multiple applicants have applied for the same domain name. For instance, 13 entities have applied for .app. Similarly, .home has 11 applicants, and .book has nine. According to ICANN, the new domain names will become operational by 2013.
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