By Martinne Geller
http://www.
reuters.
com/article/2011/06/21/us-brands-web-idUSTRE75K54U20110621
(Reuters) ? When it comes to branding on the Internet, 2012 may be the dawn of a
chaotic new era with companies and other groups expected to battle over...
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By Martinne Geller
http://www.
reuters.
com/article/2011/06/21/us-brands-web-idUSTRE75K54U20110621
(Reuters) ? When it comes to branding on the Internet, 2012 may be the dawn of a
chaotic new era with companies and other groups expected to battle over suffixes
like .
cancer, .
chocolate and just about .
anything.
The decision on Monday by the body that governs Internet domain names to stop
restricting them to suffixes like .
com and .
gov will change the way companies
interact with consumers and how much they?ll be paying to do so.
?It?s going to make the Wild West look positively civilized,? said James Gregory,
chief executive of CoreBrand, a corporate brand consultancy.
Currently, there are 22 ?generic top-level domains,? such as .
info and .
org, plus
about 250 country-level domains such as .
uk, .
de or .
ca.
That framework has already
created an environment in which companies own thousands of possible domain names,
even if they don?t use them, just to prevent bad faith ?cybers
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