AI terms draw the most rival bids in ICANN's 1,615-application domain round

According to The Verge, most people never got used to typing .restaurant or .babysitting after earlier waves of new suffixes, and .com has become more important than ever ^[15]. A few, .ai and .app among them, became somewhat popular on the back of tech trends ^[15].

The applicants see the round differently. "These applications demonstrate how organizations around the world are innovating new ways to build trusted online identities, serve their communities, and connect with internet users," ICANN president and chief executive Kurtis Lindqvist said ^[11].

The filings themselves show smaller and more specific plans. Bluesky applied for .bsky, apparently so it can build the suffix into usernames, The Verge reported ^[16]. Used that way, the suffix works inside the product, and nobody has to remember to type it. Until now, only Google and a few others had their own brand suffix, according to The Verge ^[10]. In this round, brand suffixes account for about one in five applications ^[17].

The outlets' counts don't match, so any check for a clash with your own name should be run against ICANN's published list. TechRadar reported ICANN's brand figure as 333 ^[20]. The Verge counted 345 ^[21]. Computerworld said 13 organizations applied for .agent ^[18]. The Verge said ten ^[19].

Most companies reading this filed nothing, and the window has shut: submissions closed at an August deadline ^[12]. For them the decision turns on two questions. The first is whether any applied-for string matches a name they own or sell under. The second is whether their systems allow or block traffic based on the suffix. That is the routing and list maintenance Computerworld expects the expansion to make harder for IT teams ^[14].

If both are true, there are two jobs. Decide whether to object while the objection window is open, and add the suffix to the filter review. A name match without suffix filtering leaves only the decision on whether to object. Suffix filtering without a name match needs a calendar entry for when the names start going live. Companies in neither position have nothing to do this year.

I'd run the name search this week, whichever group you fall into. It costs staff time spent on a long list of suffixes that few of your customers will ever type, if past rounds as The Verge describes them are any guide ^[15].