Business will have to pay a hefty price to register new web domains.
Global Internet regulators have approved hundreds of new domains, some of which will go on sale at the end of March. LOS ANGELES, March 17 (UPI) -- The Internet is about to offer more digital real estate in the latest push to open up new space for the world's ever-growing web presence. And one of them really, truly sucks.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has approved hundreds of new generic top-level domain (gTLD) expansions, and there could be nearly 1,500 new ones in the next few years, MacWorld reported Tuesday.
TLDs are found at the end of any primary URL -- such as .com and .gov. As people's and organizations' presence on the Internet grows, web regulators often come up with new TLDs to offer greater flexibility and availability.
What it effectively amounts to is this, for example: Microsoft.com is obviously unavailable, but Microsoft dot-some-other-domain is. The new TLDs are the latest in a long line of Internet domain expansions, but some experts believe that one in particular brings more risk than reward -- the .sucks domain.
It's likely that some businesses and large corporations won't like the .sucks domain because it provides an avenue to inflict negative criticism or harm. Since the advent of all domains, some companies have spent a lot of money buying up URLs to prevent disgruntled or scheming parties from using their brands in any type of unofficial digital endeavor. So, experts say, this just means there is now more digital real estate for them to buy up.
In fact, it appears that the .sucks domain owner is fully aware of that.
Vox Populi Registry, which owns exclusive rights to .sucks domains, has placed its corporate themed TLDs into their premium pricing option -- meaning if a company wants to register it themselves, they will have to pay $2,500, every year, to keep it. However, it can be argued that price is high enough to also act as a deterrent for those looking to cause corporate trouble.
Former senator Jay Rockefeller said he sees little to be gained with .sucks domains and he believes they have little or no value, Marketing Land reported.
Others were more stinging in their assessments.
"The entire extension is based on brand extortion," entrepreneur Rick Schwartz said.
"I can think of no other way to label it than what it is -- plain and simple economic extortion," domain industry veteran Ron Sheridan said.
Some of the newly approved TLDs will be for sale at the end of March, MacWorld reported.
Poster Comment:
I'm calling dibs on FreeRepublic.sucks and JimRob.sucks.
