More than 30 Australian businesses and non-profit organisations have applied for new top-level domains, under a process managed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) which will result in a dramatic expansion of the internet's namespace.
Applicants for the new so-called 'dot word' domain include three of Australia's four banks. ANZ has applied for .anz, NAB has applied for .nab and .ubank, while the Commonwealth Bank applied for three: .netbank, .commbank and .cba.
A number of Australian unversitities also took advantage of the first round of new TLDs: Bond University applied for .bond, LatTrobe University applied for .latrobe, Monash for .monash and RMIT for .rmit. Open Universities Australia applied for .courses and .study.
Broadcaster SBS has applied for .sbs, Australia Post applied for .auspost, AMP applied for .amp, and Telstra applied for .yellowpages. Channel Seven applied for .seven and CPA Australia applied for .cpa. The Australian Cancer Research Foundation applied for .cancerresearch.
Some of the Australian applicants known prior to ICANN's unveiling of the full list of applications last night include .afl (applied for by the AFL), .iinet (ISP iiNet), .physio (applied for by WA physiotherapist Glenn Ruscoe). The NSW and Victorian governments were known to be applying for .sydney and .melbourne.
Domain | Applicant |
AFL | AFL |
AMP | AMP |
ANZ | Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited |
AUSPOST | AusPost |
BEST | BestTLD Pty Ltd |
BOND | Bond University |
BOOK | Global Domain Registry Pty Ltd |
CANCERRESEARCH | Australian Cancer Research Foundation |
CBA | Commonwealth Bank of Australia |
CEO | CEOTLD Pty Ltd |
COMMBANK | Commonwealth Bank of Australia |
COMPARE | iSelect Ltd |
COURSES | Open Universities Australia |
CPA | CPA Australia |
FILM | Motion Picture Domain Registry Pty Ltd |
GLOBALX | GlobalX Information Services Pty Limited |
IINET | Connect West Pty. Ltd. |
ISELECT | iSelect Ltd |
KRED | KredTLD Pty Ltd |
LATROBE | La Trobe University |
MELBOURNE | Victorian state government |
MONASH | Monash University |
MOVIE | Motion Picture Domain Registry Pty Ltd |
NAB | National Australia Bank |
NETBANK | Commonwealth Bank of Australia |
PHYSIO | PhysBiz Pty Ltd |
RMIT | Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology |
SALON | Aesthetics Practitioners Advisory Network Pty Ltd |
SBS | SBS |
SEEK | Seek Limited |
SELECT | iSelect Ltd |
SEVEN | Seven West Media Ltd |
STUDY | Open Universities Australia |
SYDNEY | NSW state government |
TAB | Tabcorp Holdings Limited |
TENNIS | Tennis Australia |
UBANK | National Australia Bank |
WEBJET | Webjet Limited |
WOODSIDE | Woodside Petroleum |
YELLOWPAGES | Telstra |
ICANN also lists International Domain Registry Pty. Ltd. as an Australian/Asia Pacific applicant for the non-Latin script domain شبكة (web or network in Arabic according to ICANN).
ICANN is currently proposing to deal with applications in batches of 500, a decision that has been the subject of criticism.
Worldwide, over 10 per cent of the applied for domains have more than one applicant, subjecting them to ICANN's dispute-resolution process.
Rohan Pearce is the editor of Techworld Australia. Contact him at rohan_pearce at idg.com.au.
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