Domains bring high costs to business
The seven new top-level internet domains, recently ratified by Icann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), could cost big business more than £50,000 to maintain.
The warning comes from analyst Gartner, which says global companies could be worst affected.
With the addition of seven domains, along with the ongoing exploitation of more than 150 existing domains, including country-specific addresses, the average global enterprise will be forced to register some 300 name variants by 2001. Gartner said maintaining a worldwide presence of this scale could cost businesses about £50,000.
Audrey Apfel, vice-president and research director at Gartner, said: ‘Organisations have mistakenly assumed that having a domain name with ‘.com’ was enough. Being in ‘.com’ does not mean you are ‘.done’.’
Gartner advises any organisation that has or plans to have an internet presence to develop a domain naming strategy that goes beyond ‘.com’, with multiple names registered in multiple registries.
Factors that will play a part in burning up £50,000 are marketing and branding, legal exposures and liability, registering misspellings and related domains such as -sucks.com and non-English variants.
‘The addition of these seven new high-level domain names by Icann is onlythe tip of the iceberg – organisations must register names in multiple registries for both offensive and defensive purposes, but with the knowledge that no one can cover all the options,’ said Apfel.
‘The future will bring more options, not less. Organisations with no plan for adapting their domain naming strategy to these changes do so at their own peril.’
First published on uk.internet.com.
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