[governance] Billion-dollar Domain Industry

[Yehuda Katz]

Billion-dollar Domain Industry
July 8th, 2008 
by  Michael Lawrence 

http://www.domainpulse.com/2008/07/08/billion-dollar-domain-industry/

The latest ICANN plan to allow the global populace to assemble an entire domain
name like www.yourname.yourname as their free-choice is a revolutionary and
timely decision. This now open doors to cyber-brands such as my.ibm,
hotel.chicago, it.jobs, play.poker, fly.usa or go.dell and applicants will
submit a non-refundable fee of US$100 - 500 000 for each name idea and the
businesses are already jumping to get started.

A new study estimates that this new registration process would create US$33
billion in fees in the first three years. The prime beneficiaries will be
ICANN, which operates as a not-for-profit organisation, but it still would have
to deliver a highly structured, high speed service and meet global needs.

Real beneficiaries

Other big recipients will be the worldwide domain registrars and highly
specialised experts and lawyers, while the cascading revenues will go to IT and
web support organisations. The public at large will become the real
beneficiaries as a billion new users will come online, millions of new
interactive gateways will open and thousands of new global brands will emerge.
This will make a global impact and bring a new face to the global e-commerce.
The study also points out how in countries around the world, new national clubs
of overnight billion-dollar domain name owners will emerge, all fueling the new
global race.

In contrast, for over a decade, and after toying with nickel-and-dime
registration fees and fighting over domain names, this mature approach will
alter the domain name perceptions for the global business community, as by and
large, domain names have been the most grossly overlooked aspect of a name
identity assumed to be only to be handled by junior programmers and web
designers.

The new registration process has built-in controls and gone will be the days
when billion dollar businesses were on their hands and knees when some kid had
their domain name squatted for a nickel and had the capability to pull the
corporate strings. In those earlier days, at US$70 per domain name, up to a
million names per day were being registered. The success was so huge that
VeriSign ended up being sold for US$22 billion.

Original article : http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/16/26138.html

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