ICANN's Latest Get-Rich Scheme: Single-Letter Domains

from the movin-on-up-to-that-deeelux-domain-in-the-sky dept

If ICANN excels at anything, it's coming up with ways to wring more money out of Net domains, even though it's unclear just why they need all that cash. Their latest scheme is to finally open up single-letter domains, all but a handful of which have been barred for many years. Just like single-letter stock symbols, which many companies see as a sign of prestige, single-letter domains will no doubt be a hot commodity. Don't expect to snap one of these up at your favorite bargain-basement registrar, though -- ICANN has to "chart a course" for the domains, which translates to they've got to figure out how to extract maximum revenue from them. It's not clear whether the money will go to ICANN or one of its favored registrar cronies, but either way, it's not gonna be cheap.