REDumbrella

I looked over the list of new TLD applications when it first came out, and now I looked again to see which will be some of the first controversial TLDs to come under review. Of course there are quite a few keyword strings that many parties are competing for, and my guess is that none of them will get it (because it would simply be too controversial for just one organization to be able to control language that way).

There are, however, some rather prominent strings for which only one company submitted an application (probably the most prominent case being dot “SONG“, which Amazon is trying to acquire — I have already written about this earlier this year). There is a significant risk here: It might happen that songwriters do not realize that Amazon might in this fashion take over their industry. Without anyone else trying to acquire such important strings, Amazon may be able to easily sail across the finish line without any contest, and thereby gain control of an incredibly valuable domain.

A similar case, relatively early in the list (I do not consider IDN names to be very valuable, but in the long run these will probably be just as valuable as non-IDN names — in the short-to-medium term, however, search technology is not at a point where non-roman characters can be used effectively) is dot “MENU” (Prioritization #132). If this glides through uncontested, restaurant owners across the globe will have to pay “Wedding TLD2″ a lot of money forever.

Oh, REDumbrella? LOL, that just goes to show that some people will never learn what the Wisdom of the Language is not about!