Does future liberalization of gTLDs scare you?

[Ronald Regging]

I haven't really noticed any discussion on this topic, which surprises me quite a bit, because it could have a tremendous impact on the domain industry... Maybe I just missed it?

http://icann.org/magazine/

eg.domains posted a link to the new ICANN magazine in another thread (thank you eg.domains!).

If you scroll down a bit, you'll notice an article that ominously talks about ICANN's plans to liberalize the process for creating new gTLDs. Essentially they are proposing making it a lot easier for entities to create gTLDs.

Does this concern anyone else? Within the next year or two, the Internet could theoretically be saturated with tons of new gTLDs. I see this is as nothing more than a scam for ICANN to make more money...

But seriously, where will domaining be when there are 2, 5, 10, 50+ new gTLDs released every year? Maybe we need to stop focusing on domains and start pulling our capital together to sponsor some premium keyword extensions

 

[Dave_Z]

I noticed that before. I just didn't think people really care since, at the end of
the day, the market (or the lack of it) will help the provider decide if the TLD
is going to "survive" or not.

Of course, that's on an economic perspective.

 

[Lithium]

People are just too ambitious to release their new TLD with the best intentions of making the internet better. You can't stop them, so why bother fighting it.
While they're at it, they should just give everyone their own internet.

 

[Marck]

100 extensions like .name wont kill the .com and .infos (.mobi, .tv, etc) of the world.

 

[Krossat]

.COM IS and always will be KING !!!

:lala:

No matter how many gTLD's come and confuse the market, people will sought to go for .COM's & ORG's respectively.

 

[James]

.com will always be king. its going to kill though. getting so many gTLDs released.

 

[louddrums]

traffic to .com will increase

Its been said that all other extensions has a leakage of 35% to 45% back to .com. So the more extensions get released, the more those poor advertisers ads with other extensions will leak to .coms. More money for those with .coms. So bring them on!

 

[quality]

Apart from a .web I can't think of any other made up tld that will be that big
so the intro of others will only add to value of .com

 

[Ronald Regging]

Dave Zan:

Thats a good point, but if I've learned anything about new extensions, its that there are a vast number of speculators waiting to take the plunge, as well as vast amounts of Registrar marketing dollars aiding unknowing buyers into craptabulous .names

I think the incentive for providers to create and offer new extensions is present. Specialized industry extensions might seem pointless at face value, but financially speaking, I think there is some big money to be had by providers. Say for instance, .bank .loan .cars .doctor etc... Why wouldn't an end-user want a domain that offered a specialized, relevant extension to accompany it?

Will these extensions surpass .com in popularity? My money isn't on it, but I think the other gTLDs are going to see some catastrophic results.

 

[VURG]

I think that .com and .org domains won't be affected a lot but it poses risks for other extensions.

e.g. Some people may prefer .vid, .mov or .movie to .tv.