3 fresh domain registries ask ICANN for two character domain names
.Wiki, .globo, and .ceo registries want to offer two character domain names.
Three fresh top level domain name registries have asked ICANN to allow them to register two character domain names under their TLDs. Fresh TLD registries aren’t allowed to offer two character second level domain names per their agreements with ICANN, but I expect this to change in coming years. The requests are very different.
1. .Wiki applicant Top Level Design has asked for two character domains with the support of Wikimedia Foundation, the group behind Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation wants to register two letter second level domain names to forward to matching wikipedia.org domains, e.g. fr.wiki to redirect to fr.wikipedia.org and en.wiki to en.wikipedia.org.
2. Globo Comunicação e Participações S.A, brand applicant for .globo, wants to use second level domains that are two characters but not two letters (e.g. a1.globo). It seems that the firm by now uses third level domains this way, such as g1.globo.com. It wants to be able to use g1.globo.
3. The applicant behind .ceo, .best and .kred wants to offer two character domain names to the public. It models its plan on those of previous two character launches counting .org. It wants to accept proposals from people that will develop the domain names, then auction off the rest.
This third model worked a bit when there was limited supply of gTLDs, but I don’t expect it to grab much attention these days. Maybe two character domains will help .ceo get to 1,000 domain names in the zone.
