You won’t be able to send to or receive from *.Cadillac, *.Chevrolet, or *.GMC, while friends of other brands, from Dodge through Toyota, will have that pleasure. General Motors withdrew three applications for what is called a “generic top level domain” or gTLD. Oddly, the applications for Buick and the supposedly illegal Chevy are still on the books.
A gTLD replaces the familiar dotcom. In case you want your own gTLD, it does not come cheap. The application fee alone is $185,000 and the annual fee runs another $25,000. On top of this come significant expenses of running the extension, which “can put the total cost for a new TLD into the millions,” as Steve Jones, COO and Co-Founder of Domainate said.
While GM is saving money, Volkswagen splurges: It registered a pricey gTLD for each of its vast collection of brands, except for Porsche and Skoda .
You’d think they would want a Porsche one, as Porsche owners love to feel special and have their branding all over.
ICANN needs to be slapped upside the head.
+1,000,000
Agreed. This is definitely one of the dumbest ideas for domain names that ICANN has come up with, although I suppose a good money-maker for them.
Fiat could probably pay for itself selling .Ferrari addresses. Overweight middle aged Americans would flock to .vette, too.
Your exceptionally creative ‘Vette owner zinger neglected to mention race.
Race doesn’t really come into it, and I wouldn’t think anyone outside the country would care. Maybe I should have worked Harley Davidson into it, hey?
TLD’s are very much a nice to have. While it won’t make a big difference to the bottom line, GM does have the right attitude here.
Who’s minding the store?
Akerson is, but he spends his most of his time watching the cashier like a hawk, making the cashier refuse to make change for a twenty.