Last week in a rather unheralded step, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the organisation that manages domain names on the Internet, started accepting applications for new tailored top level domains or TLDs, something that marks the start of the potential full decentralisation of control of domains and that might have big implications for marketers.

There are currently only 20 TLDs (see if you can think of them if not go here - some will surprise!) alongside all the country domains so we have clearly been under-supplied for way too long.  But just before we all rush off and apply to get our own brands registered make sure you have some spare cash as each application costs about £120k.   No doubt we will see .apple, .google, .facebook and the like being approved at speed, seems like .brand and .category have already been given the nod.