L’Oréal has applied for the top level domain (TLD) .beauty to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), the global authority dealing with domain names on the Internet. TLDs are what we see on the right side of the dot in domain names — for example, .com and .net. If L’Oréal gets .beauty, which seems very likely, it will be able to reserve this top level domain name just for its own use. Unlike .com, .org, .net etc, which are public TLDs, .beauty will be a private TLD. What this means is that, for instance, “Raji Curls,” a beauty salon, will not be able to ask for www.rajicurls.beauty, as one could have in the case of .com. L’Oréal will have the exclusive use of .beauty, as its private property. If L’Oréal were to seek a trademark for “beauty,” it will be flatly refused. The word is too generic for anyone to be given monopoly rights over it. It is therefore surprising that L’Oréal should be able to get global monopoly rights on .beauty, just because it is willing to pay $1,85,000, the application fees for new TLDs, to Icann.
