What a chief marketing officer (CMO) should know about the new generic top level domains and dot brands is addressed in an article by Jennifer Wolfe, an expert in intellectual property and domain names.

Wolfe asks a few questions. “Will the fact that half the world’s top brands – Google applied for 101 new top-level domains, Amazon applied for 76 – now own a dot brand change things? Will the ability to more specifically define your product, service, slogan, campaign or company into a category more closely aligned with your messaging win in favour of the oldie but goodie, .COM?”

Wolfe notes a few things a CMO should consider. These are summarised as:

1. “Many speculate that the top-level domain doesn’t matter. But it likely will in the future.”
2. “New domains and dot brands will allow marketers to create a user experience more tailored to the consumer.”
3. “The other big trend on the horizon is using the dot brand space to collect new forms of data.”
4. “New dot brands will also have the ability to offer greater security.”
5. “… new ways of using the internet – when it’s connected to flat panels throughout your home, car and other places – will evolve how domain names are used.”

When asking what a CMO needs to know, Wolfe writes that “new domain extensions could transform what consumers come to expect when they search from a browser. The idea that domain names are more desirable and trusted than old-school domain names is a natural evolution of the domain name space.”

The .su ccTLD for the old Soviet Union is, probably surprising to many, still in existence 25 years after the empire collapsed. In an article on Inverse it says “that there are currently 119,423 registered .su” domains that anyone can register. It’s operated, “strangely” by a company in New York City that the author couldn’t contact and is a haven for cybercriminals.

And Verisign has commenced discussions on renewing their contract to operate .com from 2018, which includes price increases, according to Domain Name Wire.