Google has come under fire from an anti-Google lobbying body over a number of generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) it has applied for. The FairSearch group, made up of companies including Microsoft, Oracle, Nokia, Expedia and others, has filed objections with ICANN against Google's requests to control .search, .fly, .map as closed registries.
ICANN has released a list of applications for generic top-level domains (gTLDs), along with their position in a raffle. The randomly-drawn list sets the order for ICANN to evaluate and process the applications for domain suffixes, with the first gTLD to be issued expected to be the word "catholic" in Chinese, as requested by the Catholic Church.
Objections have been made to a number of generic top-level domain (gTLD) applications. The ICANN Government Advisory Committee, consisting of 50 countries, has posted an initial list of 250 objections where member countries claim there to be an issue with the gTLDs being registered. Rejected applications will receive 80-percent of their $185,000 application fee.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has raised objections to certain gTLD applications. The Saudi Communication and Information Technology Commission has filed complaints with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) over some top-level domain proposals on various taste, decency and health-related grounds in the last few days, according to The Register.
ICANN has revealed the full list of new generic top-level domain (gTLD) submissions. Some 1,930 requests have been made, with some major parties aiming for multiple suffixes, while others are notably absent. In many instances the Internet-based land-grab involves companies trying to secure brand names and trademarks, though others are competing for generic terms, or some not-so-serious names.
Google has applied for various domain name suffixes, including .google, .docs, .youtube, and .lol. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) process has seen nearly 2000 applications for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), including companies seeking to secure their own trademarks as well as potentially valuable domain endings that could be in high demand in some markets.
Google is suffering minor embarrassment in the wake of launching Google Play as it's belatedly trying to obtain the GooglePlay.com domain. A dispute filing with the National Arbitration Forum is arguing that the site, an ad parking page held by an unnamed Japanese person, should belong to Google itself. The search engine had filed for a trademark just the day before the Play launch and will likely use it to contest the ownership.
