Critics say Google is “Hispandering” with fresh .Soy domain name

If the firm is Hispandering, it’s also mompandering and corporationpandering.

Fresh top level domain name registries offering regional, niche, or cultural domains, take note: the people you’re targeting might take it the wrong way.

That’s apparently the case with .soy. Google’s fresh domain name isn’t targeted to yuppies who don’t like cow’s milk. It’s targeted to the Hispanic community. “Soy” is Spanish for “I am”.

But some people in the community think the effort is misguided. That, or they needed something to write regarding this past week when .soy came across their desk.

A Fox News Latino article aks “Google’s fresh .SOY domain: Code for segregation or source of Latino pride?”. It states Google ought to just hire more Hispanics rather than offering them a fresh top level domain name on the web.

This article in RedEye Chicago states Google is “Hispandering to a special level”.

Apparently .com and .net weren’t big enough for everyone, so Google decided to create a separate area of the Internet for Latinos to listen to salsa music, share enchilada recipes and do whatever else Latinos do…

…Latinos aren’t asking to be treated differently; quite the contrary, we’re simply asking to be treated the same. Latinos don’t want their own special corner of the Internet.

And a handful of people on Twitter stated Google was segregating Latinos.

Wait. What?

Tell that to the LGBTQ “community”, which is pissed off at ICANN for not handing it its own place on the web with .gay.

If the Hispanic community thinks Google is pandering to them, they’re going to be really miffed to find out that Google and other firms are “pandering” to the Japanese (.みんな – everyone), moms (.mom) and corporations (.inc).

They’ll be surprised to find out that Hotels (successfully) argued that they ought to have their own home on the web. So did the “eco” community, which apparently doesn’t include people like me who just like to recycle.

I bet the people of Fresh York are upset that they’re being “segregated” online with the fresh .nyc domain name.

Apparently controversy can be good, still. Google’s .soy video (below) has been viewed over 600,000 times, making it the most popular fresh TLD video to date. Regarding 1 in 450 of them have purchased a .soy domain (it has 1,308 names in the zone).