Google has shelled out well over $18 Million in its bid to acquire 101 domain names or GTLD (Generic Top Level Domain) names from ICANN, the sole authority doling out new names at $185,000 per application. Google has clearly made a bid for several usual and unusual names with an eye on the future.
Google has applied for expected domain names such as .chrome, .android, .gmail, .google, .hangout, .youtube, and several others that users usually recognize with the company. However, it has also applied for bizarre names such as .foo, .fly, .boo, .dad, .rsvp, .love, .mom, and even .dog, among many others.
While several domain names have not been contested by other applicants, many of those names have competition from giants such as Amazon, Microsoft, and several other lesser-known companies too. Luckily for Google, social networking companies such as Facebook and Twitter avoided placing any bids at all while giants such as Apple simply went after .apple that was not applied by any other company.
Google might have certainly researched the profiles of future generations of internet users and might thus have tried to corner niche names that it predicts could hold great potential in coming years. With each application costing a lot of money that would only increase once the name was finally allotted to Google by way of legal fees, infrastructure costs, etc, Google would certainly need to work hard to turn unusual domain names such as .boo and .foo into successful brands.
It will be interesting to see as to which applicant finally gets their desired domain names since it will be a long time before allocations are finally made. Google certainly has a top-secret strategy behind several of its applied names and it seems that the company might have the last laugh once it receives those brand new GTLDs.