An article covered by Star Tribune gets a different point of view from Jon Schindel a domain name attorney who discuss rush for new generic top-level domain names — that portion of the website’s name that comes after the dot, as in “.com” or “.gov.” And of course, this top-level has its own acronym — gTLD.
Schindel is advising clients to stay on the sideline until the dust settles. “It’s a cutthroat world,” he said. “The application for a new name is not something to be taken lightly. This is a Pandora’s box that can’t be closed.”
“It is a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Schindel’s business partner Miquel Fiol, a consultant who brokers domain names and sold his first one as a University of Wisconsin student in 1993.
As we all know there has been 1900 applications for new GTLDs to ICANN givng them $350 million US Dollars in cash reserves for these applications.
Fiol says there are millions of potential Internet addresses using those 21 domain names. “But people aren’t using most of them because “.com” is the single most advertised anything,” he said. “.org” is used by just 10 percent of sites and “.net” by 5 percent.
But to industry observers like Schindel and Fiol, the cost of registering a new domain name is prohibitive and the expansion is frivolous.
“For $185,000 you don’t really get anything. You’re just part of a pack,” said Fiol. “What if you apply for ‘.music’ and then learn that there are 10 other applications for ‘.music?’ You’re now either part of an auction for that name or you buy off your competition, both of which are going to cost you more.”
Dan Kelly, a trademark attorney for the Minneapolis firm Winthrop & Weinstine, agrees that expansion of domain names is a hot topic these days.
The bottom line from Fiol: “I’d say stay away for now.”
I think that’s pretty sound advice for now with the GTLD’s – To read more check out the article here.