Aussies buy into new domain era

The film industry, universities and banks were among the Australian organisations that applied for the most generic top-level domain names (gTLDs).

iiNet and the Australian Football League (AFL), as well as Sydney and Melbourne had already announced their intentions to apply for gTLDs.

However, the domains that many other Australian parties are seeking have now come to light.

Almost all of the big four banks have applied for a domain, with Westpac the only organisation to abstain from seeking a gTLD. AMP, for instance, sought .amp.

The Commonwealth Bank wasn't satisfied with applying for just one domain, asking for .cba, .commbank and .netbank.

iSelect was another organisation that cast its domain net wide, asking for .compare, .select and .iselect.

Bond University, Monash University, La Trobe University and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology all carried the flame for universities, while Open Universities Australia applied for a number of domains, including .courses and .study.

Telstra joined iiNet in the telco fray by asking for .yellowpages, but didn't seek .telstra, while Woodside Petroleum represented the resources industry, seeking .woodside. Australia Post continued its push to become a digital force, applying for .auspost.

The film industry hedged its bets, with the Motion Picture Domain Registry asking for .movie and .film, although organisations from other parts of the globe also sought those gTLDs.

When multiple applicants seek the same suffix, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will encourage parties to work out an agreement, and will hold an auction if competing bidders fail to reach a compromise.

Other Australian organisations that will need to go to negotiation on their desired gTLDs include Tennis Australia for .tennis, CPA Australia for .cpa, Global Domain Registry for .book and the Aesthetics Practitioners Advisory Network Pty Ltd for .salon.

Globally, Apple, Sony and American Express are among the companies seeking names to go with their brands.

Google and Amazon.com also sought dozens of names, including .app and .play, with the gTLD .app garnering 13 applications.

Other popular domains are .home and .inc, which each nabbed 11 applications (Google took part in both); .art, with 10 applications; and .book and .blog, which each got nine. Other generic domains, such as .news, .music and .movie, also received their fair share of interest.

Also popular was .cloud, with Google and Amazon again competing for the same domain alongside Symantec, and .baby, which Google and Johnson & Johnson are both vying for.

The .free domain only hooked five applicants, while .sex only nabbed two. There were three applicants for .sucks.

Altogether, there were 1930 proposals for 1409 different suffixes. The bulk came from North America and Europe.

It'll take at least a year or two for ICANN to approve the first of these new suffixes. ICANN will review each proposal to make sure that its financial plan is sound, and that contingencies exist in case a company goes out of business.