Paul notes the silver lining in this -- the more gTLDs applied for with "porn" identifiable strings ( that is what an 'extension's' nomenclature is ) the less likelihood of any governmental based "ghettoization" of porn might be.

With the new Trademark Clearinghouse there will need to be less in the way of defensive registrations. For larger businesses the costs are minimal -- if your name isn't worth the cost of trademarking then too bad I guess ... Without trademark ( registered or by judicial decree) you are precluded from the domain name dispute process anyway -- your decision, just be aware of it.

I think that ICANN collecting more fees in the light of a slowing of growth in the current gTLDs and ccTLDs is one aspect. Another aspect is the large body of speculative name registrations making many domain names unavailable in the more popular gTLDs.

The days of dot com being king may be on the downside now and that will affect a lot of investment. The value of the new gTLDS will depend a lot on the search engines reception of them. Today the search engine's preference for the TLD is overestimated anyway. The content and user acceptance is more weighted today.

I wonder how many search.['gTLD'] there will be? There will be a whole bunch of challengers to Google's crown. If anything a surfer will be able to search the index of their favorite gTLD for its domains. So, on this scenario all the results might be from one .gTLD. Just search your favorite gTLD for the content that you are looking for -- this would be a radical departure from the norm of today but the 'norm' evolves.

Some are speculating 200 or more new gTLD strings. Personally I think 10 to 25 new generic ones with perhaps 100 brand vanity gTLDs, we'll see ...

The average cost of these new domain names might be $20.00 to $70.00 at retail in the gTLD's general registration period. There will be a new crop of 30 million domain names to supplement the current 235 million names out there now by 2015.

This will cause keyword domain name dilution big time and may create create major SEO challenges in time ...

"there will be a nominal fee." not defined but an interesting marketing strategy depending on the valuation of "nominal."

I wouldn't overestimate ICANN's revenue from domain names sales of registries ...

Quote:

ARTICLE 6. FEES 6.1 Registry-Level Fees. Registry Operator shall pay ICANN a Registry-Level Fee equal to (i) the Registry Fixed Fee of US$6,250 per calendar quarter and (ii) the Registry-Level Transaction Fee. The Registry-Level Transaction Fee will be equal to the number of annual increments of an initial or renewal domain name registration (at one or more levels, and including renewals associated with transfers from one ICANN-accredited registrar to another, each a ?Transaction?), during the applicable calendar quarter multiplied by US$0.25; provided, however that the Registry-Level Transaction Fee shall not apply until and unless more than 50,000 Transactions have occurred in the TLD during any calendar quarter or any four calendar quarter period (the ?Transaction Threshold?) and shall apply to each Transaction that occurred during each quarter in which the Transaction Threshold has been met, but shall not apply to each quarter in which the Transaction Threshold has not been met. Registry Operator shall pay the Registry- Level Fees on a quarterly basis by the 20th day following the end of each calendar quarter (i.e., on April 20, July 20, October 20 and January 20 for the calendar quarters ending March 31, June 30, September 30 and December 31) of the year to an account designated by ICANN.