New York City is finally getting its own domain extension. At a first come, first serve basis, the .nyc URL addresses will be available starting on October 8 exclusively to New Yorkers.
The .nyc extension had over 3,000 domain name registrations in the land rush program, which ended on Friday, resulting in approximately 2.5 million generic top-level domain (gTLD) name registrations.
New Yorkers registered for the .nyc domain name for only $20, but those who were lucky enough to qualify to become the domain owners also have to pay other fees to get it. In the case where two or more people applied for the same domain name, landrush auctions were held.
Unlike the location-based URL addresses used by Las Vegas, London and Miami, "New York's hottest new real estate" requires that the domain owners be residents of New York. "That's a requirement of .nyc— for any registration, you must be located in New York City," said Jeff Newman, VP of Registry Services at Neustar, which handles the domain's registry.
But questions regarding the domains remain, such as what happens when the owner moves out of New York?
New York was awarded the .nyc domain last March by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
Businesses and organizations also registered for the domains. Digital.nyc, the city's initiative to cultivate the New York tech community, launched last week. Other domains include Makerspace.nyc for the Staten Island-based maker lab, and Shubert Theater's Shubert.nyc.
Earlier this year, both .berlin and .paris launched after a previous domain extension. The domain extension for .melbourne also launched and had a total of 856 domain name registrations, but the general public was ineligible to register.
The record for the most Sunrise registrations for any new gTLD goes to .brussels, which just finished its Sunrise period of trademark holders. It has over 1,2000 domain registrations.
