Social network Twitter will “absolutely engage” in the second round of ICANN’s New gTLD program. Company’s trademark counsel Stephen Coates said that in an interview to Trademarks and brands online. According to him, it is still unknown what number and which domains the company will apply for but there is no doubt that domain name .TWITTER is number one in the list of preferences.
As with other large social networks, Twitter decided to wait and didn’t apply to any New gTLDs in the first round of the program. However, it’s results, it seems, have satisfied the company. According to Coates, company’s experts haven’t agreed on how the launch of their own gTLD will contribute to marketing aims of brand promotion. Stephen Coates considers security to be the main advantage of having your own domain. “The only way you can maintain control of all servers and a domain name experience is by operating your own gTLD”, - he said.
Coates also pointed out that he had conversations with his colleagues from other large social networks and would be happy to see .FACEBOOK, .LINKEDIN and .PINTEREST among new gTLDs. However, he added that he was a realist and didn’t expect that the second round of the New gTLDs program will start in the near future. He expressed the view that the launch of the second round could become one of the most important discussions during ICANN’s 54th meeting that began its work in Dublin yesterday.
