Canadian firm among .law domain applicants

A Canadian firm is seeking rights to the suffix .law on ­website addresses instead of current ‘top level domains’ such as .com.

Merchant Law Group LLP is listed among eight applicants for the suffixes .law or .lawyer in a new list of potential domains issued by the internet’s governing body. Most of the other applicants are registration bodies aiming to sell .law web addresses to third parties. Two applications were received for .legal, both apparently from Colombia.

The suffix .solicitor apparently attracted no applicants in contrast to .doctor, .tennis and .sex.

The new domains will greatly increase the variety of web addresses while allowing the holders to control their use. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) charged applicants $185,000 to have new domains considered by its deadline of 30 May. Where more than one organisation applied for a term, ICANN will hold an auction.