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.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]