Asia Joins Domain Party: GREE Wants .GREE, Sina and Tencent Both Want .WEIBO

As many of you may have heard by now, ICANN revealed the list of generic top level domain names that companies all around the world have applied for. I thought we’d take a look at some of the names that were applied for from companies here in Asia, particularly in China and Japan, as those countries had a bunch of interesting applications.

These names would be in addition to the current TLDs such as .com, .net, .org, etc. that already exist. Apparently the application for these new ones is not cheap, with any company wishing to bid paying $185,000. And in the case of multiple bidders, there could be an auction to decide the winners.

Check out my list below, which is far from comprehensive, but I think I pulled out most of the ones that might interest our readers. If you’d like to check out the full list, you can browse it here.

Perhaps most interesting to us at TechInAsia is the fact that both Tencent and Sina have gone after the .WEIBO and .微博 domains. This conflict could be interesting, but considering that Sina already owns both Weibo.com and Weibo.cn, it could be argued that it has the stronger claim. But personally I think the companies CEOs Pony Ma (Tencent) and Charles Chao should have to arm wrestle for it!

• .GREE, GREE Inc.
• .NTT, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation
• .KDDI, KDDI Corporation
• .MAIL, GMO Registry Inc
• NEC, NEC Corporation
• NIKON, Nikon Corporation
• NHK, Dwango Co.
• .PANASONIC, Panasonic Corporation
• .SHARP, Sharp Corporation
• .SONY, Sony Corporation
• クラウド, ストア, セール, Amazon
• .SAMSUNG, Samsung
• .ALIPAY, Alibaba
• .SINA, Sina
• .BAIDU, Baidu
• .SOHU, Sohu
• .UNICOM, China Unicom
• .WEIBO by both Tencent and Sina
• .ANQUAN by Qihoo 360
• 公司, 网络, CNICC
• 联通, China Unicom
• 新闻, Xinhua
• 微博, Sina and Tencent
• AIRTEL, BHARTI, Bharti Airtel