The National Association of Realtors has pushed back by one month the deadline for applying to receive advance email notification for priority registration of “.realtor” domain names one day prior to general release.
NAR will provide a free “.realtor” top-level domains for one year to the first 500,000 members who apply for a .realtor domain that incorporates their name. Members who file a “priority registration” request by Jan. 31 using SignUpForDotRealtor.com, a dedicated website that launched in November, will receive advance email notifications.
NAR has applied to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for the rights to administer .realtor, one of hundreds of new “generic top-level domains” ICANN is expected to approve in 2014 and beyond.
NAR submitted its application through Real Estate Domains LLC (RED), and has also filed applications for .realestate and .home through two other companies, DotRealEstate LLC and DotHome LLC. Each domain application cost $185,000, an expense paid for by NAR’s strategic partner, Second Generation Ltd., a Cleveland-based investment firm.
Although ICANN is expected to grant NAR the right to create and administer the .realtor top-level domain, it faces competition for .realestate and .home.
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) is also facing a rival to its application to create and manage a new “.MLS” top-level domain — Dublin, Ireland-based Afilias Ltd.
ICANN this month proposed rules for auctioning off contested generic top-level domains like “.MLS,” “.realestate” and “.home” to the highest bidder.
Domain Name Wire reports that in marketing .realtor, NAR “will have to compete with nontrademarked and less restrictive real estate domain names such as .realty and .realestate.”
NAR is also reportedly warning members about pitches directed at real estate professionals offering them the opportunity to register websites incorporating the “.re” top-level domain, which is the the country code for Réunion, an overseas territory of France. Source: domainnamewire.com.
