Around 20% of Association of National Advertisers members applied for new TLDs, but many may have been defensive.
One of the most outspoken — and tardy — groups to lobby against ICANN’s expansion of the internet namespace was Association of National Advertisers (ANA).
The group lists close to 500 members on its web site, and it appears that around 100 of them ended up applying for new top level domains. (I count 92, but it’s very hard to get this precise given various names and affiliations.)
Of course, that doesn’t mean these members were excited about applying. In almost all cases the members applied for only their brand name(s). They may have seen it as a defensive necessity, even if there was little chance of someone else being awarded the domain.
Here are some examples of ANA members that applied for their brands, despite little chance of someone else applying for them (and almost no chance of them being approved for someone else):
.homedepot
.accenture
.abbvie
.capitalone
.delmonte
You might blame ANA in part for any defensive registrations. It certainly instilled fear in its membership about scenarios that were very unlikely — if not impossible — to play out.
A small handful of members also applied for generic top level domains. Allstate, for example, applied for both .CarInsurance and .AutoInsurance.
Two ANA members will face off over their proposed generic domain: Both Walmart and Safeway applied for .grocery.
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