How Singapore businesses can nail their brands' worth online – Part Two

New gTLDs will change the way people find information on the Internet and how businesses plan and structure their online presence. Virtually every organization with an online presence could be affected in some way – ICANN 41, June 2011, Singapore

From 19-24 June 2011, ICANN held its 41st meeting in Singapore. ICANN is The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a non-profit U.S. organization that oversees a number of Internet-related tasks.

The meeting announced this to the world: ICANN Board’s approval of the new gTLD project, a revolutionary project for the Internet that allowed any organization with enough financial backup to come forth with their applications of new gTLDs (generic Top Level Domains). It was the invitation for anyone to come up with a dot anything, literally speaking.

Look at your website address in a new light
Here in Singapore most of us are used to seeing domain addresses ending in .com, .com.sg and .sg since .COM gTLD was launched in 1984 and SGNIC rolled out .SG ccTLDs in the year 1997. gTLD stands for generic Top Level Domain while ccTLD stands for country code Top Level Domain.

SGNIC is the appointed national registry responsible for authorizing and regulating the registration, administration and management of domain addresses ending in .sg.

To date, there are 23 gTLDs (.com .net .org .biz .jobs .mobi .asia .xxx .travel, etc) and more than 276 ccTLDs (.sg .my .in .id .th .vn .la .ph .hk .jp .kr .au .nz etc) each regulated by their own registries.

Do note that the consideration of domain addresses is firstly its TLD (Top Level Domain). It is crucial for you to take a renewed look at your current website address. Do regard domain addresses from right to left; firstly what its TLD is, secondly by the string of text left of the dot, and so on.

A domain is either registered to you or unavailable to you
These days, a domain address is not just a virtual address where companies or individuals “reside” or are found. Domain addresses also have financial value just like physical properties do in the real world.

This means that besides genuine business owners who just want to register one domain address with their brand to host their website, there exist professional domainers who register hundreds of domain addresses purely for the purposes of investment and trading.

They typically register the domains that they feel will have positive ROI and “hold on” to these, with the hope of eventually selling some of these domains to companies who are willing to buy in the secondary domain name market. For example, www.changiairport.sg, www.tigerbeer.com and www.banyantree.com.

The secondary domain name market contains all sorts of domain names. Businesses may too try to sell their domain names here if there are bad stigma or history attached to those domains. Many generic domain names are valuable in the secondary domain name market because by their generic nature, they attract lots of visitor traffic on the Internet.

The website www.Sneakers.com for example attracts hundreds of thousands of unique visitors monthly. A sneaker maker such as Nike or Adidas could purchase the domain sneakers.com and as a bonus, point its visitors to Nike.com or Adidas.com.

On 4 July 2013, the domain accounts.com fetched €145,000 in an online auction while on 26 July 2013 child.org and forest.com were put up for auction at the asking prices of US$10,000 and €15,000 respectively. Singapore.co is currently offered at USD100,000.

Registries want to issue domain names to genuine business owners
Most Registries strictly prohibit the registration of domain names for speculative purposes and enforce policies in order to protect genuine owners of brands and trademarks.

For example, THNIC, Thai Registry for .CO.TH domain addresses, requires that brand and trademark owners (registrants) register domain names identical to their brands or trademarks, and on top of that, to produce certifications in support of their claims of ownership.

Japan Registry Service forbids Japanese-registered companies from registering more than one .CO.JP domain. AUNIC, Australian Registry for .COM.AU domains, has a strict requirement that registrants must be Australian registered companies and operate their businesses from within Australia.

SGNIC introduced a pilot scheme in May this year, requiring that the administrative contacts of registrants registering .SG domain addresses go through a verification process so as to minimize identity theft incidences and the use of fake identities.

Registrations of domain addresses are subject to limitations imposed by ICANN and guidelines from Registries. These constraints protect the genuine brand owners and also help to lower speculation in the secondary domain name market.

If genuine brand owners register their brands or trademarks with the new gTLDs before the public does and if further restrictions apply to the public, the number of domains that can be registered by speculative members of the public is less.

One of the biggest secondary domain auction sites Sedo.com reported that in the year 2011 alone, nearly 40,000 domain transactions occurred, with transacted sales dollars amounting to US$84.5 million. Most of the higher priced domains transacted were naturally the ever-popular .COMs.

However, Sedo.com reported growths in transaction volumes of .CO (ccTLD for Columbia) and .ME (ccTLD for Montenegro) among other TLDs. This meant that relatively new TLDs were regarded with keener interest than before.

Imagine if each new gTLD was unregulated, released for public registration at will and adds 1,000 domains annually to the secondary domain name market. Now multiply that by the actual number of new gTLDs that may be released to the public: 700 and you will understand why the new gTLDs are such a big deal.

When can you register <InsertyourBrandnamehere>.gTLD?
The last of 1,930 new gTLD applications was accepted by ICANN on 30 May 2012. After a series of comprehensive and long drawn-out verification processes, the current number of verified new gTLDs stands at 1,377 with more in the pipeline.

Out of the 1,930 new gTLDs, an estimated 600 are brand-TLDs owned and operated by large corporations for their own use for example, .CANON and .MATTEL.

Over the course of the next 2 years or so, most gTLDs meant for use by businesses and by the public will be released for registration. In fact, the first four gTLDs: شبكة (Arabic for "Web or Network"), .онлайн (Russian for "Online"), .сайт(Russian for "Web site") and .游戏 (Chinese for "Game") are expected to be available for registration from 15 October 2013.

Some business owners here in Singapore may want to look out for these for the purpose of defensive domain registrations or because you are planning to expand your businesses to these geographical regions.

You, the business owner, are now advised to identify which new gTLDs are applicable for your business. This is because while some gTLDs are very applicable for your business, most mildly apply; a few are entirely off.

For example, if you are a furniture retailer, you may want to register your brand with the TLDs .FURNITURE, .CASA and .LIVING, but you do not need to register your brand with .AUTO or .FIRE. For details to these, speak with your current service provider.

After you have identified which gTLDs are relevant for your business, keep track of each of them to find out when registration for either sunrise or general launch begins. Sunrise registrations are for brand owners to register their brand domains; general launch registrations are for the registration of generic domain names.

Near the start of registration of each new gTLD, registration conditions and pricing details will be released. Soon you will be on your way to owning <InsertyourBrandnamehere>.gTLD. Meanwhile, let us wait in patience for the Internet is about to get very, very interesting.

This article is second in a series of three to help inform local businesses of current and upcoming challenges on the Internet.