The Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne have expressed an
interest in applying for the .SYDNEY and .MELBOURNE generic Top Level
Domains with governments in both cities saying they will apply for the
new gTLDs when ICANN commences the application process.
In Sydney, the state government's Premier's Office has expressed an
interest in applying for .SYDNEY as long ago as June 2009 when ICANN
held one of its three meetings per year in the city.
According to a report in The Australian newspaper
today, the NSW Premier's Department is planning to release a tender to
assist in applying for the gTLD and operate the registry. Meanwhile
further south in Melbourne, a City of Melbourne spokeswoman told The
Australian the council was "actively considering" obtaining .MELBOURNE.
"No decisions have been made" on whether to apply for the name, she told
The Australian, but industry sources told the newspaper Melbourne was
also seeking advice on lodging an application for the gTLD with ICANN.
The NSW Premier's Department said .SYDNEY would provide major benefits
for Sydney and there were "potential risks if the .SYDNEY gTLD was not
secured for use in connection with Sydney (Australia)."
Chris Disspain, CEO of auDA, the .AU policy and regulatory body
acknowledged that the upfront $185,000 application fee to ICANN for a
new gTLD was a not insignificant amount of money, but that there were
strong community benefits in establishing .SYDNEY and .MELBOURNE, and it
was likely the cities would designate the names for promotional and
tourism purposes.
"At the moment, if you type Melbourne into Google, chances are you will
be inundated with a heap of monetised websites that provide you with
links to a heap of other monetised websites that then provide links,
eventually, to something that might be of use," Disspain told The
Australian.
Depending on registration policies, it could be gTLDs for the cities of
Sydney and Melbourne could also gain support given the somewhat
restrictive registration policies for .AU.