Google backing new gTLD trade association
New gTLD applicants and others have been meeting in Amsterdam this morning to discuss setting up a new trade association to promote new gTLDs and domain names in general.
The meeting, which was organized by Google, coincided with but was separate from an ICANN registry-registrar gathering in the city.
According to sources on the ground, the proposed trade association would be focused on raising consumer awareness about domain names and their benefits, outside of the ICANN community.
It’s a very early-stage idea, and today’s meeting — we hear — discussed things like possible funding sources and membership requirements.
More details are expected to emerge later today.
We also hear that the important topic of “universal acceptance” of TLDs has been discussed.
As we reported earlier in the week, there’s still not enough support from major software developers (including browser makers, whose job it is to connect users to web sites) for some of the newest TLDs.
Lack of awareness could cause technical problems as well as marketing ones, so a trade association — especially one back by Google’s headline-raising powers — may well be good for the industry.
Google is an applicant for almost 100 new gTLDs.
Kevin
I suspect it’ll be a few days before anything close to concrete is locked down
Michele
It sounded like there was broad agreement in the room on the scope of the association. Well attended. Standing room only.
This seems to be the largest regional ICANN meeting ever in terms of attendance. Estimated 250 attendees vs. previous high attendance of ~80.
This is the same Google that has refused to use http://www.google.la/ for LA for the past several years. This is also the same Google that wrongly flagged certain .LA domains as being suspicious. I’ll believe their good intentions when I see it!
The challenges of introducing new gTLDs is not new. The question before us now is whether, or not, we can trust a self-regulated body (supported by Google) to look out for our better interests. Given Google’s track record to date within the .LA domain space over the past several years, I’m inclined to consider a regulatory body (which I know is controversial). Such an entity would give this process greater independence. Perhaps Google is trying to head off this option for its own interests by creating this future state trade association on new gTLDS. At the end of the day, Google has not been operating by its mission statement, i.e., do no evil.
http://www.circleid.com/posts/20110525_user_experience_with_new_tlds_how_to_avoid_junk_mail_file/#7918
More evil from the search and advertising monopolist?