Google began testing its new extensions, in which it invested millions of dollars, on April Fools’ Day.
With ICANN’s new extension program, Google, which applied for approximately a hundred extensions, initiated an April Fool’s Day prank by launching the com.google domain name. This also served as an opportunity to test its new infrastructure, worth millions of dollars.
For each domain name extension, Google paid an application fee of $185,000 and an annual fee of $25,000. Google ultimately won the rights to the .app extension in an auction held by ICANN, committing to a payment of $25 million.
Applications for Both Generic Extensions and Google Brand Extensions
Google applied for a variety of extensions, including those related to its products and some generic domain names, in addition to .google and some alphabet equivalents of this extension. Google launched the website http://www.google.com/registry/ to market these extensions.
Google’s 101 Extensions Applied For
Extensions with multiple applications that went to auction include:
.app, .baby, .blog, .book, .buy, .cloud, .corp, .cpa, .dds, .dev, .diy, .docs, .dog, .dot, .drive, .earth, .family, .movie, .free, .fun, .fyi, .game, .gmbh, .goo, .home, .inc, .live, .llc, .llp, .lol, .love, .mail, .map, .mba, .med, .mom, .moto, .movie, .music, .pet, .phd, .play, .plus, .search, .shop, .show, .site, .spot, .srl, .store, .talk, .team, .tech, .tube, .vip, .web, .wow, .you
Extensions for which Google was the sole applicant include:
.ads, .and, .android, .are, .boo, .cal, .car, .channel, .chrome, .dad, .day, .dclk, .eat, .esq, .est, .fly, .foo, .gbiz, .gle, .gmail, .goog, .google, .guge, .hangout, .here, .how, .ing, .ing, .kid, .meme, .mov, .new, .nexus, .page, .prod, .prof, .rsvp, .soy, .tour, .youtube, .zip, .みんな, .グーグル, .谷歌
If Google had acquired all 101 extensions, it would have paid an application fee of $18.5 million, with an annual fee of $2.5 million to ICANN, calculated at $25,000 per extension. Including the additional $25 million for the .app extension and the investments in infrastructure, Google’s total investment in these extensions is estimated to exceed $100 million.
.google has been live since September 2014
An agreement was signed with ICANN on July 24, 2014, for the .Google extension, and it was made available for internet use on September 4, 2014.
It is anticipated when Google will start fully utilizing this new $100 million investment. Com.google was an April Fool’s joke, but it also successfully tested the new extension infrastructure.
About ICANN’s New Extension Program
ICANN’s first new extension program, launched in 2012, received more than 1800 applications from various sectors including internet, automotive, banking, electronics, retail, media, and aviation.
Among these 1800 extensions, some are intended for commercial sale, with .xyz becoming the most popular, reaching 850,000 domain names in just one year.
ICANN’s New Extension Program in Turkey
Despite one of ICANN’s three global offices being located in Turkey, there were only two applications from the country. The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality applied for the .ist and .istanbul extensions, which will soon be available online.
The second application came from Asia Green IT Systems, based in Turkey. They applied for eight extensions, including .islam.
Apart from these, no other Turkish brand applied for its own extension.