Affiliate Programs and Affiliate Reviews
The cocooned gTLD has started to spread its wings, and soon it will show its colors and become a butterfly. Its well-guarded fuzzy and slow progress has finally propelled it to a much-anticipated metamorphosis, but the world still waits for some flying maneuvers. Mother ICANN has worked very hard to coax it along to this stage.
On June 20, 2011, ICANN made an announcement to a packed meeting in Singapore that created a global shockwave. With a thousand delegates bearing witness, ICANN released its long-awaited gTLD program, creating new types of domain names with unlimited potential. The application fee per name starts at $185,000, and each new name can cost up to $500,000 to integrate.
The current anti-cybersquatting model of preregistering 25,000 domain name combinations to surround a master brand name identity and avoid possible cybersquatting will slowly fade away. Cybersquatting came about due to the original easy access of no-questions-asked, cheap domain name registrations. New gTLDs are not as open as ".net," ".info," ".biz" or ".me" but are rather closed and more specific.
Why would someone invest $187,000 for single name application with ICANN plus
another few hundred-thousand dollars on related costs to acquire a new gTLD
domain root system? Simple, the real motivation will be to declare global-image cyberwarfare and to create global market domination under a name identity.
When a good name identity is super-glazed with a good trademark protection plan,
there is no reason why it would be hurt by ICANN’s gTLD. However, when a name’s alpha structure is too weak to be distinct — diluted by hundreds of identical or similar names — it hangs in limbo. Companies with such names can neither enforce their rights nor stop others from using the same name.