7 ms·

Google is buying the entire '.app' domain for a Whopping $25M

64 points by mascot6699 12y ago

mascot6699 12y ago
The official news was released a long time ago http://googleblog.blogspot.in/2012/05/expanding-internet-domain-space.html http://googleblog.blogspot.in/2012/05/expanding-internet-dom...
- Zikes 12y ago
  That is their announcement for their plans to purchase those domains, but with competition and a particularly long application process with ICANN they only just officially acquired .app.
godzillabrennus 12y ago
I guess they see it as a good long term investment. Hope it pans out for them.
aarestad 12y ago
Who actually are they buying this from? ICANN? Or some other TLD suppliers?
- andrewstuart2 12y ago
  TLD squatters. Same exact problem as before, just more expensive. http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/customer-service/faqs/faqs-en#application http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/customer-service/faq...
  - logicallee 12y ago
    what, you can just tld squat? (without founding a nation)? How is that not like squatting on all domain names that start with an "a"? I mean, how can it be technically possible. Did some guy just pay 20 bucks for the .app tld and ICANN was like, cool, nobody has registered this one yet - you can have it?
    - VieElm 12y ago
      I think the minimum price for setting up a TLD is tens of thousands of dollars, and it doesn't have to be a country it can be any kind of string, like .pepsi or .beef or anything.
      - icebraining 12y ago
        I think the minimum price for setting up a TLD is tens of thousands of dollars Almost $200k, actually, and that's just the fee to present the request; you'll still have to have the infrastructure to actually run the root DNS servers for your TLD(s).
        andrewstuart2 12y ago
        You mean 2 x $5 VPS won't be enough?
      - Alupis 12y ago
        Quick, someone register .pepsi and .coke then do nothing with them until either company pays you... of wait, we're right back at the domain squatting thing again?
        notatoad 12y ago
        No, because it's not an open registration process. it's an application process, and if you or i tried to acquire the .pepsi TLD it would be denied outright (and our $185k application fee would be forfeit). New gTLDs (like .app) which receive multiple applications and have no clear owner are opened to an auction among the qualified applicants. Other more specific applications are given to the most qualified applicant (for example, i know the applicant for .ski has been endorsed by the USSA and FIS, the american and international governing bodies for skiing)
    - Kneedler 12y ago
      $185,000 just to apply. If multiple parties applied, the gltd gets sent to auction. https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applicationstatus/auctionresults https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applications...
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Who actually are they buying this from? ICANN? Yes. ICANN is auctioning the new gTLDs, and Google won the auction for .app.
Alupis 12y ago
How does a single company go about buying an entire TLD? Doesn't seem very "forward looking" for ICANN. Pretty soon it will turn out like our .com issue which all "premium" domains already purchased and/or squatted on. As an aside, I really don't like all these "cutsy" TLD's that are showing up. To me, whenever I see a .info or .biz, I'm already wary of the link... now there's things like .ninja, .technology, .academy, .bargains, .bid, .build, .builders, etc etc etc...
- chiph 12y ago
  "Weary" as in tired of seeing them? Or "Wary" as in "Not sure I want to click on that link"?
  - Alupis 12y ago
    > "Weary" as in tired of seeing them? Or "Wary" as in "Not sure I want to click on that link"? Both?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
      - Alupis 12y ago
        > your parent was asking if you were making a typo. I did make a type-o, and corrected it. But since either word would fit my statement, I made a joke.
    - chiph 12y ago
      Ok, I can see that. Some days, I feel the same way. "Oh jeeze, not those guys again!"
- andrewstuart2 12y ago
  .info and .biz have both been around for 14 years, so they're not exactly just starting to show up.
nvk 12y ago
This extended TLDs are the biggest scam ICANN ever pulled. Huge money grab for companies to buy more to defend their brands.
- romaniv 12y ago
  And before someone says you're wrong: if it wasn't a scam and if it was a genuine effort to expand the available domain name space, those would be different domain names, rolled out in a different manner, in a different time frame. What they are doing is perfect for driving up prices through hype and corporate anxiety. It benefits squatters more than anyone else. I am not even sure this benefits large corporations. But public at large - definitely not. What is the public benefit of having somename.app instead of somename.app.com? Does it justify $25M pricetag?
- jessaustin 12y ago
  What percentage of companies are dumb enough to buy domains on these new tlds purely "to defend their brands"? Is Walmart going to buy "walmart.diamonds" and "walmart.condos"? I doubt it, but whatever, I'm not sad that there is a new tax on corporate stupidity.
  - romaniv 12y ago
    I think the parent speaks about stuff like microsoft.app. (Which, IMO, should be .apps, plural.)
    - jessaustin 12y ago
      .apps, plural. Seems like a perfectly cromulent TLD. b^) One of Google's competitors should file with ICANN right away!
- WorldWideWayne 12y ago
  Systems where new resources can be created out of thin air for a relatively low cost are eminently corruptible. It's a license to print money.
blfr 12y ago
Any idea what they might want to use it for? Give every Android app a domain? Just sell domains like every other registry?
- alex_sf 12y ago
  My first thought was an integration with GAE. Right now the default URL for a GAE app is foo.appspot.com. foo.app is quite a bit cleaner (and subtly advertises GAE).
troymc 12y ago
If you're curious about how ICANN's "New generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Program" works, check out http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about
untog 12y ago
To be fair, this might be the best of a bad world. Google plans to make this TLD available for people to register (like they have with .how). One of other companies in the bidding for the TLD was Amazon, who had no intention of letting outside parties register domains.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Which means Google created themselves almost-infinite money pump. They just have to sell 250k of these domains for $100 to break even.
  - untog 12y ago
    Like I said, best of a bad world.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > To be fair, this might be the best of a bad world. Google plans to make this TLD available for people to register (like they have with .how). Source? I can find a list of all the gTLDs they applied for, I can find partial lists (which don't include .app) of ones they plan to allow registration on, and I can find partial lists (which also don't include .app) of ones they plan to use for Google products.
mathiasben 12y ago
"Currently Google lets people register for ".how," ".soy," and ".minna" domains one its own ICANN-accredited domain registry." So this is what google has planned for these TLDs? reselling domain names. That piece from a couple of days ago describing how google and Microsoft have switched places makes more sense now. google is using it's cash to create some additional revenue streams. such a basic play, a la network solutions circa 1998. wow.
gress 12y ago
Google owns the open web.
quadrangle 12y ago
All these new gTLDs area obnoxious. They are poisoning the reputation of legitimate and important TLDs like .coop which has been around nearly 15 years and is a legitimate domain that people now guess is one of these new crop of crap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.coop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.coop
JDiculous 12y ago
Feels like a monopoly...
meesterdude 12y ago
why are they buying TLD's? why is anyone allowed to buy TLD's? This doesn't seem like it will bode well for consumers; .app seems like it would have a lot of demand. I think the broader naming options are good to have, though they should have done this way sooner. Trying to register a .com today and its just impossible to find a name that's already taken. most all you find are squatters. I know some people don't like the new ones but its necessary at this point - we're running out of room.
- larrys 12y ago
  "most all you find are squatters." Everyone likes to think that of course. However you are assuming that if what you call a "squatter" as a pejorative didn't have the name it would be available and wouldn't have been grabbed prior to you wanting that particular name by someone else. Like a flower shop in Omaha or General Electric? At least people in the domain business are in the business to sell domains. Every try to buy a domain that google or any large company owns? I have. Money doesn't even matter to them at all. They don't need more money, right? I have a case now where I am trying to buy a name for a client that will pay $500,000 USD for it plus stock options. And the corporation that owns the name (not google but a company in the UK) has no interest at all in parting with the name at even those price levels. Part of the reason is that the people in corporate jobs don't personally stand to gain by selling the domain the money doesn't go into their pocket. So they aren't motivated by economic benefits at all which makes it particularly difficult to get deals like that done (although there are other ways for sure).
BrianEatWorld 12y ago
How does bidding for something like this work? Say I am an individual and I heard about the new .app domain coming online and I just wanted my own brianeatworld.app domain, but Google sets out to buy the entire space. Is my bid simply ignored? If my bid for the single domain ended up being higher than Google's on a per domain basis, would I be able to get my domain? Is that even possible given that there are theoretically an infinite number of domains for any given TLD? Doesn't the infinite number of domains mean that the price Google is paying for an individual domain in the TLD approaches zero?
- trekky1700 12y ago
  Google is buying the TLD, not all the subdomains under it. They will then have control over the namespacing for the TLD and be able to distribute subdomains as they see fit. This is how most TLDs work because "app" itself is a domain, not just an extension.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Say I am an individual and I heard about the new .app domain coming online and I just wanted my own brianeatworld.app domain, but Google sets out to buy the entire space. Is my bid simply ignored? It doesn't work that way. They are petitioned for and auctioned off as TLDs, its only after that has occurred that the new TLD is announced as "coming online". Google and others bid for the .app TLD, and auction occurred, and Google won the auction. If they use it to allow registrations (as some on this thread have said they intend to, but I haven't seen anything official -- for some of their new gTLDs they have announced this, e.g., .how, for others they have said they are using them for their own products, e.g., .plus), then you will be able to register a domain like brianeatworld.app through Google or one of their registration partners.
- soneil 12y ago
  This process isn't for individual domains. They're bidding to own(?)/run/operate the entire TLD. Similar to how, eg, the entire .uk ccTLD is administered by Nominet. So they're not buying "every .app domain". They're buying (the rights to?) the administer the entire TLD.
politician 12y ago
It's these kinds of articles that leave me pining for distributed (blockchain) DNS built into browsers.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
lameduck 12y ago
How will that TLD work when people want to search for an app instead of hitting a url? How could you distinguish between them in Chrome's omnibar?

64 points by mascot6699 12y ago

The official news was released a long time ago http://googleblog.blogspot.in/2012/05/expanding-internet-domain-space.html http://googleblog.blogspot.in/2012/05/expanding-internet-dom...

Zikes 12y ago
That is their announcement for their plans to purchase those domains, but with competition and a particularly long application process with ICANN they only just officially acquired .app.

godzillabrennus 12y ago

I guess they see it as a good long term investment. Hope it pans out for them.

aarestad 12y ago

Who actually are they buying this from? ICANN? Or some other TLD suppliers?

andrewstuart2 12y ago
TLD squatters. Same exact problem as before, just more expensive. http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/customer-service/faqs/faqs-en#application http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/customer-service/faq...
- logicallee 12y ago
  what, you can just tld squat? (without founding a nation)? How is that not like squatting on all domain names that start with an "a"? I mean, how can it be technically possible. Did some guy just pay 20 bucks for the .app tld and ICANN was like, cool, nobody has registered this one yet - you can have it?
  - VieElm 12y ago
    I think the minimum price for setting up a TLD is tens of thousands of dollars, and it doesn't have to be a country it can be any kind of string, like .pepsi or .beef or anything.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      I think the minimum price for setting up a TLD is tens of thousands of dollars Almost $200k, actually, and that's just the fee to present the request; you'll still have to have the infrastructure to actually run the root DNS servers for your TLD(s).
      - andrewstuart2 12y ago
        You mean 2 x $5 VPS won't be enough?
    - Alupis 12y ago
      Quick, someone register .pepsi and .coke then do nothing with them until either company pays you... of wait, we're right back at the domain squatting thing again?
      - notatoad 12y ago
        No, because it's not an open registration process. it's an application process, and if you or i tried to acquire the .pepsi TLD it would be denied outright (and our $185k application fee would be forfeit). New gTLDs (like .app) which receive multiple applications and have no clear owner are opened to an auction among the qualified applicants. Other more specific applications are given to the most qualified applicant (for example, i know the applicant for .ski has been endorsed by the USSA and FIS, the american and international governing bodies for skiing)
  - Kneedler 12y ago
    $185,000 just to apply. If multiple parties applied, the gltd gets sent to auction. https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applicationstatus/auctionresults https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applications...
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Who actually are they buying this from? ICANN? Yes. ICANN is auctioning the new gTLDs, and Google won the auction for .app.

Alupis 12y ago

How does a single company go about buying an entire TLD? Doesn't seem very "forward looking" for ICANN. Pretty soon it will turn out like our .com issue which all "premium" domains already purchased and/or squatted on. As an aside, I really don't like all these "cutsy" TLD's that are showing up. To me, whenever I see a .info or .biz, I'm already wary of the link... now there's things like .ninja, .technology, .academy, .bargains, .bid, .build, .builders, etc etc etc...

chiph 12y ago
"Weary" as in tired of seeing them? Or "Wary" as in "Not sure I want to click on that link"?
- Alupis 12y ago
  > "Weary" as in tired of seeing them? Or "Wary" as in "Not sure I want to click on that link"? Both?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    - Alupis 12y ago
      > your parent was asking if you were making a typo. I did make a type-o, and corrected it. But since either word would fit my statement, I made a joke.
  - chiph 12y ago
    Ok, I can see that. Some days, I feel the same way. "Oh jeeze, not those guys again!"
andrewstuart2 12y ago
.info and .biz have both been around for 14 years, so they're not exactly just starting to show up.

nvk 12y ago

This extended TLDs are the biggest scam ICANN ever pulled. Huge money grab for companies to buy more to defend their brands.

romaniv 12y ago
And before someone says you're wrong: if it wasn't a scam and if it was a genuine effort to expand the available domain name space, those would be different domain names, rolled out in a different manner, in a different time frame. What they are doing is perfect for driving up prices through hype and corporate anxiety. It benefits squatters more than anyone else. I am not even sure this benefits large corporations. But public at large - definitely not. What is the public benefit of having somename.app instead of somename.app.com? Does it justify $25M pricetag?
jessaustin 12y ago
What percentage of companies are dumb enough to buy domains on these new tlds purely "to defend their brands"? Is Walmart going to buy "walmart.diamonds" and "walmart.condos"? I doubt it, but whatever, I'm not sad that there is a new tax on corporate stupidity.
- romaniv 12y ago
  I think the parent speaks about stuff like microsoft.app. (Which, IMO, should be .apps, plural.)
  - jessaustin 12y ago
    .apps, plural. Seems like a perfectly cromulent TLD. b^) One of Google's competitors should file with ICANN right away!
WorldWideWayne 12y ago
Systems where new resources can be created out of thin air for a relatively low cost are eminently corruptible. It's a license to print money.

blfr 12y ago

Any idea what they might want to use it for? Give every Android app a domain? Just sell domains like every other registry?

alex_sf 12y ago
My first thought was an integration with GAE. Right now the default URL for a GAE app is foo.appspot.com. foo.app is quite a bit cleaner (and subtly advertises GAE).

troymc 12y ago

If you're curious about how ICANN's "New generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Program" works, check out http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about

untog 12y ago

To be fair, this might be the best of a bad world. Google plans to make this TLD available for people to register (like they have with .how). One of other companies in the bidding for the TLD was Amazon, who had no intention of letting outside parties register domains.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
Which means Google created themselves almost-infinite money pump. They just have to sell 250k of these domains for $100 to break even.
- untog 12y ago
  Like I said, best of a bad world.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> To be fair, this might be the best of a bad world. Google plans to make this TLD available for people to register (like they have with .how). Source? I can find a list of all the gTLDs they applied for, I can find partial lists (which don't include .app) of ones they plan to allow registration on, and I can find partial lists (which also don't include .app) of ones they plan to use for Google products.

mathiasben 12y ago

"Currently Google lets people register for ".how," ".soy," and ".minna" domains one its own ICANN-accredited domain registry." So this is what google has planned for these TLDs? reselling domain names. That piece from a couple of days ago describing how google and Microsoft have switched places makes more sense now. google is using it's cash to create some additional revenue streams. such a basic play, a la network solutions circa 1998. wow.

gress 12y ago

Google owns the open web.

quadrangle 12y ago

All these new gTLDs area obnoxious. They are poisoning the reputation of legitimate and important TLDs like .coop which has been around nearly 15 years and is a legitimate domain that people now guess is one of these new crop of crap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.coop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.coop

JDiculous 12y ago

Feels like a monopoly...

meesterdude 12y ago

why are they buying TLD's? why is anyone allowed to buy TLD's? This doesn't seem like it will bode well for consumers; .app seems like it would have a lot of demand. I think the broader naming options are good to have, though they should have done this way sooner. Trying to register a .com today and its just impossible to find a name that's already taken. most all you find are squatters. I know some people don't like the new ones but its necessary at this point - we're running out of room.

larrys 12y ago
"most all you find are squatters." Everyone likes to think that of course. However you are assuming that if what you call a "squatter" as a pejorative didn't have the name it would be available and wouldn't have been grabbed prior to you wanting that particular name by someone else. Like a flower shop in Omaha or General Electric? At least people in the domain business are in the business to sell domains. Every try to buy a domain that google or any large company owns? I have. Money doesn't even matter to them at all. They don't need more money, right? I have a case now where I am trying to buy a name for a client that will pay $500,000 USD for it plus stock options. And the corporation that owns the name (not google but a company in the UK) has no interest at all in parting with the name at even those price levels. Part of the reason is that the people in corporate jobs don't personally stand to gain by selling the domain the money doesn't go into their pocket. So they aren't motivated by economic benefits at all which makes it particularly difficult to get deals like that done (although there are other ways for sure).

BrianEatWorld 12y ago

How does bidding for something like this work? Say I am an individual and I heard about the new .app domain coming online and I just wanted my own brianeatworld.app domain, but Google sets out to buy the entire space. Is my bid simply ignored? If my bid for the single domain ended up being higher than Google's on a per domain basis, would I be able to get my domain? Is that even possible given that there are theoretically an infinite number of domains for any given TLD? Doesn't the infinite number of domains mean that the price Google is paying for an individual domain in the TLD approaches zero?

trekky1700 12y ago
Google is buying the TLD, not all the subdomains under it. They will then have control over the namespacing for the TLD and be able to distribute subdomains as they see fit. This is how most TLDs work because "app" itself is a domain, not just an extension.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Say I am an individual and I heard about the new .app domain coming online and I just wanted my own brianeatworld.app domain, but Google sets out to buy the entire space. Is my bid simply ignored? It doesn't work that way. They are petitioned for and auctioned off as TLDs, its only after that has occurred that the new TLD is announced as "coming online". Google and others bid for the .app TLD, and auction occurred, and Google won the auction. If they use it to allow registrations (as some on this thread have said they intend to, but I haven't seen anything official -- for some of their new gTLDs they have announced this, e.g., .how, for others they have said they are using them for their own products, e.g., .plus), then you will be able to register a domain like brianeatworld.app through Google or one of their registration partners.
soneil 12y ago
This process isn't for individual domains. They're bidding to own(?)/run/operate the entire TLD. Similar to how, eg, the entire .uk ccTLD is administered by Nominet. So they're not buying "every .app domain". They're buying (the rights to?) the administer the entire TLD.

politician 12y ago

It's these kinds of articles that leave me pining for distributed (blockchain) DNS built into browsers.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

lameduck 12y ago

How will that TLD work when people want to search for an app instead of hitting a url? How could you distinguish between them in Chrome's omnibar?