New.net, an unofficial domain name registry created to meet the
market demand for web addresses with logical, easy-to-remember
extensions, this week announced that it has released a new domain
name extension, .movie, targeted to consumers and movie fans
interested in easily finding their favourite official movie sites
by typing web addresses that end in .movie instead of .com. It sees
a gap in a market where film producers often struggle to find
available any memorable .com names that match the names of their
movies.
It will not be open to all internet users; instead, users must
be customers of an ISP that already recognizes New.net domain names
or users can download a plug-in application.
Since New.net's launch in March of this year, the company has
been selling domain name extensions such as .shop, .family and
.auction.
New.net has upset members of ICANN, the official naming body of
the internet. Like other unofficial domain name sellers, New.net
competes in a market where it can only succeed if it gets a
sufficient number of users downloading the plug-in or accessing its
sub-domains via affiliated ISPs. To date, it has been more
successful than any other non-ICANN approved registry.
