Apple applies for .Apple top-level domain
Apple is looking to secure their trademark in the world of top-level domains, along with many other mobile giants like Sony, Samsung and HTC. There were a grand total of 1,930 applicants for new URL suffixes to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. For the next 60 days, the public has the right to comment on any of the applications and the deciding panels will take it under consideration before granting top-level domains. Of geographic note, Africa and Latin America are making their first applications to the organization.
It's unlikely that we'll see Apple.apple as a website address anytime soon, but it does prevent con artists from appearing to be official when they're anything but. I'm trying to figure out any legitimate way in which Apple could use the suffix... "tim.cook@iphone.apple" just looks weird. Apparently the approval process can take at least a year or two, so at least it's not something we'll have to think about for awhile still. Regardless, this is no trifling affair; each proposal required a $185,000 submission fee.
You can see the full list of suffix applicants here, or if you're looking for a laugh, check out the full list of suffixes currently recognized by Mozilla over here. Do you guys have any bright ideas on how Apple could put such a unique branding opportunity to work?
Source: AP
There are 11 comments. Add yours.
It does seem weird right now, but I could see it becoming a common practice. iphone.apple, macbook.apple, ilove.apple, etc. Gives a chance to have the core brand in the url in a simple way which is good for marketing. Rather than iphone.com which redirects to apple.com/iphone for instance.
It may seem slightly easier to go to mail.google instead of mail.google.com, or maps.google, but going to shop.amazon is more typing than amazon.com, Not to mention that Amazon.com is like Kleenex in terms of becoming second nature to most people in the civilized world.. The same applies to .apple, thus my guess is Apple has applied to simile preserve their brand identity.
If anything they should secure .apl
I don't get the fuss over these domain names. It's maybe only a few times a year that I directly type a URL into my brower, mostly I just look it up on a search engine if it's not already in my bookmarks.
Well, let's put it this way: for sites like ours, it could present a whole new opportunity. .com is the de facto standard for no particularly good reason. If we wanted to clearly identify our site as specifically for/about Apple products, having the company name directly in the URL is hugely beneficial for getting picked up by search engines.
Interesting thought, I just assumed Apple would use it for themselves. But they could also license it out to sites like this and make a tidy profit off it.
On top of the 185k initial fee, there is also approximately a 250k yearly fee. So yeah I see them licensing the .apple domain. But then again, that's like pocket change for apple so licensing it might not happen anytime soon.
They should get a prefix and a suffix.. http://apple.apple.apple/
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