Quote:
Originally Posted by harvey
http://www.icann.org/
Pretty interesting to say the least. Basically, ICANN said: "FUCK OFF, WE COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT INTERNET REGULATIONS, JUST SHOW ME THE MONEY!"
Question is: how much time before someone here registers the .sex tld? or .hot? or .gay?
And thinking of it, how much would you pay for gay.sex or hard.sex or whatever? Don't you think that value alone covers the 185k needed to own one of those TLDs? Personally, if I had the 185k at disposal, I'd jump on it right now without even thinking about it (yeah, I know, I'm the only poor webmaster in this board, so take advantage of it you filthy rich bastards!  )
Anyway, the real question to whoever does it is: how much are you going to pay for my brilliant ideas? 
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Here's something I think a lot of people are missing when they read about this: the $185k is merely the
application fee.
As the term "application fee" suggests, all paying that fee does is to put you into
consideration for the TLD you want. If other parties are interested in the TLD, even if you make it through the application process (which is not a slam dunk, btw), then you'll find yourself in a bidding war for the TLD, unless you can make the case that it should be awarded to you over the other contenders for reasons grounded in intellectual property/trademark/etc -- as I'm sure a lot of the biggest companies/brands will do.
If you actually end up being awarded with the TLD.... then the real expenses begin, of course. The technical infrastructure requirements alone will be a deal-killer for a lot of people who might otherwise be interested in owning/operating their own TLD.
Anybody who is interested in the idea of owning a TLD should really check out
the gTLD Applicant Guidebook ICANN has published. I'm reading it now myself, and my strong hunch is that for most people in the adult industry, after reading through module 1.5 ("Fees and Payments"), their enthusiasm for the idea will be
somewhat reduced. ;-)