Canon Applies for Generic Top-Level Domain
ICANN, the international body that manages the business of approving domain names and numbers, decided about two years ago to permit generic top-level domain names (gTLD), creating an application process that is expected to get underway this year.
The camera and technology company Canon Inc. announced yesterday that it has done what it can now to apply for the gTLD “.canon”, not suprprisingly, and staked out its territory:
Following approval for the new gTLD system, which is expected to take place after the latter half of 2011, Canon will make full use of the new domain name to increase the convenience and effectiveness of its online communications.
Slaw would, of course, apply for its own gTLD were it not for the small matter of the application fee, which is estimated to be US$185,000.
I find this to be ridiculous and counter to the intentions of having open TLDs. Doing this does not fill a need, serves little to no purpose for Canon and can cause harm.
It’ll be a field day for phishing crooks.
This basically rings of ill-thought out terrible marketing schemes and is NOT what the intended usage of a free form TLD was created for.
Smart move to make the news, although I don’t think companies should have their own TLDs…there are already enough out there and I can’t see a real value for users.