The Rich Get Richer And The Poor Ban Together

The other day I blogged about the announcement, by ICANN, that they will be offering custom domain TLDs. But the biggest thing, for me anyways, was the idea that they will start the bidding at $100,000 for a custom TLD. With that being said you can count out the small businesses and individuals when it comes to all of the new domain fun. And usher in the big boys. Think .bigmac, .ibm, .google, and .schick.

Many people have asked me over the past few days what my thought are on the subject. I think that it is an overall good thing. But what really grinds my gears about it is, how are all of the poor people going to get in on the fun? Well, it has been proposed by Barry Schwartz that Internet marketing professionals ban together under the wings of their trade industry organization SEMPO and pool money together to secure TLDs such as .SEO and .SEM.

What I think will happen is that companies, probably domain registrars, will snatch up as many popular TLDs as they can and will end up selling domain names with their custom TLDs to the masses. Of course I am sure that they will keep all of the best ones, or auction those off to the highest bidders. What will also happen is that large brands like McDonalds, Coca-Cola, etc., will be forced to secure their TLDs before someone else does! That should net ICANN a pretty penny.