CANON LOOKING TO SNAG ".CANON" TOP-LEVEL DOMAIN NAME

[Anonymous]

http://www.blackweb20.com/2010/03/17/canon-tld/
CANON LOOKING TO SNAG “.CANON”
TOP-LEVEL DOMAIN NAME
If this title
didn’t make much sense to you, it’s understandable. This story caught
me off-guard as well and what Canon wants to do here seems pretty odd.
Rather than being happy with an official-looking “canon.com” web address
for it’s business dealings, Canon wants to purchase the “.Canon”
top-level domain. You’re reading that right, it’s Dot-Canon. No “www” in
front or anything.

A Top Level Domain is the string of
characters located in the right-most side of a domain name, and
represents the “source” within the hierarchal structure of a domain
name. There are two types of TLDs: gTLD (generic Top Level Domain),
based on usage application or sector, such as “.com,” and ccTLD (country
code Top Level Domain), based on country or region, such as “.jp.”

Back
in the day, all you pretty much had was .com, .net, .org, and a few
others based on country or region. As the web grew, these were expanded
to add TLD’s like .biz, .me, .name, and others. Adding new TLD’s was
always a pretty big deal, so this move by Canon is pretty bold. I don’t
know of any company or organization that has made such a request.

ICANN
(Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is the
organization that manages and regulates the Internet’s addressing
system. It seems that Canon is trying to strike while the iron is hot,
taking advantage of the results of ICANN’s International Public Meeting
held in June 2008. They approved the relaxation and liberalization of
the gTLD (generic top-level domain) system. The new system was supposed
to go into effect in 2010 and would “allow a company name, brand name,
geographic region, or service type to be used as a gTLD within website
and e-mail addresses.”

Canon hopes that owning their own TLD will
enable direct utilization of the Canon brand as it relates to their
online activities. They want to “globally integrate open communication
policies that are intuitive and easier to remember.” Even going so far
as to say “.Canon” is easier to remember than “Canon.com” I’m not sure
how I feel about this. Sure, .Canon is simpler to remember, but it’s not
intuitive. We’re used to seeing website URL’s in a certain format and
missing everything before that dot might be confusing for some. At any
rate, we’re bound to see a plethora of other companies coming out of the
woodwork to get their own .Whatever domains.

[Author]

March 29, 2010 at 11:12 AM