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Google's .meme domain is here to serve your wackiest websites
- rabbits_2002 3y agoSo then why did they sell Google Domains?
- delfinom 3y agoProbably to cut what overhead there was in servicing users directly. Google is still operating TLDs as "Google Registry" since they can just easy mode that part as a backend service, they just push you now to go to a domain reseller.
- barryrandall 3y agoBecause Registrars are high-effort (customers are the general public), low unit price, low-margin and Registries are low effort (customers are only Registrars), high unit price, and high margin.
- timthelion 3y agoHow does google get the right to create net TLDs? Can I create a TLD?
- jdiff 3y agoYou can, if you can demonstrate the ability to maintain a gTLD registry and can cough up hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.
- timthelion 3y agoWho does that money go to?
- advisedwang 3y agoIt goes to ICANN. You can learn about their program at https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/program https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/program
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y agoYou don't need that. Just run a dns server which returns the appropriate results for the tld of your choice. Getting others to recognize and repeat might need a little "grease".
- duskwuff 3y agoThey applied for them as part of ICANN's New gTLD program in 2012. Due to overwhelming demand (and bureaucratic slowness), it's been a very slow process getting those applications approved and implemented. https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/program https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/program
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agoYes you can create a TLD. The question is what assumptions are implied by "TLD". Will it be used by other people. How many. Will there be a registry. Will the registry "rent" domain names as some sort of business. Will you try to get the nameservers for the TLD listed in someone else's root.zone file, e.g., ICANN's. It's possible to create a TLD that makes none of these assumptions. For example, I have some TLDs I created on the home network. The idea of a "right" to create a TLD assumes some sort of valid legal or regulatory framework. But this does not exist. There is an imaginary authority that relies 100% on voluntary compliance, embodied in a private US corporation called "ICANN", but it's imagined "authority" has no basis in the law of any country. It will gladly take peoples' money but it offers no means of enforcing the "rights" it purports to "grant". Trademark law is perhaps the only legal framework governing what you do with your TLD. But the idea that a TLD must resemble a trademark is yet another assumption, not a requirement. For example, the TLDs I created for use on the home network cannot be confused with any trademark.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agoAnd domain names do not need to look like trademarks either.
- chupapimunyenyo 3y agoIt's worth mentioning that you can't become a domain registrar yourself. It's a privilege for the rich to make even more money
- xnx 3y agoOfficial announcement: https://blog.google/products/registry/google-registry-meme-domain/ https://blog.google/products/registry/google-registry-meme-d... I'm surprised to see that lol.meme is currently available.
- operator-name 3y agoGandi lists lol.meme as a premium domain for over $800. We're also in the early access period where even normal domains cost thousands of dollars to reserve.
- pimlottc 3y agoSome are that expensive but most 4+ letter domains seem to be around $75, going down to $25 for longer names (on Gandi at least): https://shop.gandi.net/en/domain/suggest?search=Microsoft.meme https://shop.gandi.net/en/domain/suggest?search=Microsoft.me...
- pfannkuchen 3y agoI’m not sure if they’re keeping track for pre registration, everything I checked is available including single letters.
- all2 3y agoPre-registration seems interesting. I wonder if I'll actually get the domain I tried to register.
- jareklupinski 3y agogodaddy wants over 1k for me.meme my fingers are likely faster
- bitwize 3y agoSounds on brand for Google, which was one of the first companies I'd heard of to have an internal meme generator on their intranet.
- pcdoodle 3y agoI wouldn't trust google to point to the blandest of memes let alone a spicy one.
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoAs with most of the recent additions this is just so insignificant in the scheme of things as anyone with whatever idea has a million options for their domain and whatever ends up getting promoted, and more importantly, linked to, is what will work. Hardly anyone is typing the domains so it's just a marketing tag. Also kinda generally resent the meme culture we have created, what it has come to represent. A whole generation of toxicity has come from it (doing/approaching everything for the lols etc). That fact that stonks whatever is listed in the official blog post. The old misc cat things and whatever were fun at first but what came after..blech.
- jrnichols 3y agoI'm not thrilled at seeing Google grow in the registry space as I think that they already have too much influence over the internet as it is, but at least they didn't take another file extension as a TLD.
- astra_vulpes 3y agoWhile I am not thrilled by this, it's still better than the horrid ".zip" and ".mov" domains they pushed a few months ago. They could have doubled down and started pushing ".exe", ". docx", or ". rar" domains...