Which was the only company to apply for a .FLY domain?

With lots of talk in recent months about a bonanza of new domain name extensions being made available to anyone, perhaps more than one company would’ve bid for .FLY this week.

So which travel company was it?

In fact, it wasn’t a “travel company” at all.

Everyone’s favourite search engine – or scourge of the industry, depending on your point of view – from Mountain View, California, decided to apply for the new .FLY to-level domain, alongside more than 100 other extensions such as .NEW, .EAT, .SEARCH and .SHOP.

Although it faces zero competition for .FLY, Google will have to battle the likes of Microsoft and Amazon for many of the other domains it applied for.

Google was also the only applicant for .CAR.

The decision by global domain system ICANN to release hundreds of domain extensions has not been without its detractors, with some questioning the overall value to companies going through the application process.

Others have suggested in a world where social networks are increasingly the primary portals for consumers, additional domain extensions are a waste of time.

All is not lost, however, with destination marketing experts pondering whether some of the new top-level domains could serve some use for tourism boards.

This week saw ICANN disclose which organisations had applied for the domain extensions, triggering the news that Google has been busily eyeing a string of new names – a process which the New York Times says will have cost Google around $18.7 million in application fees.

Each application cost a heady $185.000.

There were a number of other travel-related extensions being put up for grabs for ICANN.

Accommodation giant Booking.com was the only applicant for .HOTELS, for example, but six organisations – including Despegar - have pitched in for .HOTEL.

Many companies have applied for brand name extensions such as Marriott and Hyatt, while some have made decisions not to get involved. Airbus, for example, which inevitably went for .AIRBUS, did not see its arch rival manufacturer Boeing join in the fun.

NB: Runway aircraft image via Shutterstock.

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