This week, ICANN announced that by this time next year, additional top-level domains for businesses and industries would be open for purchase. This means that more meaningful and specific domains, such as .hotel or .houston, will be available. Currently, there are only 21 top-level domains (ie: .com, .org, etc), so this would make the domain choices virtually limitless.
What does this mean for your brand? Well, if you want to ensure that you are able to purchase your “.brand” domain, then now is the time to register your trademark if you haven’t done so already. According to the ICANN website:
“Trademarks will not be automatically reserved. But there will be an objection-based mechanism for trademark owners where their arguments for protection will be considered.”
Granted, not every company will need to purchase their brand as a top-level domain extension – you will need to determine what make sense for your brand strategy. But, now is the perfect time to revisit your domain structure and see determine an action plan for next year. At minimum, you might want to consider additional domains instead of the typical .com and .net ownership now to secure your place and protect your brand value online.
