With only five days since the second stage in the gTLD program opened, it is already possible to speak of at least one serious difference between it and the previous stage. Fourteen years ago, the applicants were rather reserved and reluctant to announce their intentions to apply for new domains. Journalists lined up to get comments from Canon, which stated that it was going to vie for its own domain brand. Several major cities and non-government organizations also declared their intentions to obtain new domains, but in general, the number of well-known applicants could be counted on one hand.
Today, over a hundred of companies and organizations have already confirmed their wish to apply for a new domain. A considerable part of them are applicants for brand domains. However, the most renowned world companies are not yet among them; perhaps the largest is the IT company Salesforce of the United States. Still, applicants for the new domain category are very active. The Domain Incite suggests calling them “open brand domains” absent a better term.
This is about the companies using blockchain and cryptocurrency, which have already created or are creating own domains in alternative (Web3) domain systems. They want to use new DNS domains to integrate Web2 and Web3 domain spaces: the possibility for registering second-level names will be provided for all the clients having similar names in alternative systems.
However, it should be remembered that ICANN, to put it mildly, is very cautious about alternative domain systems. And hardly anyone can guarantee that all the companies seeking to integrate traditional and blockchain domains will reach the finish line at the second stage of the ICANN new domains program.
