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"Google has applied to control a slew of domain names that are not only related to its core business but have \"interesting and creative potential.\"\nThe company announced on its blog on Thursday that it has submitted applications to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for the following domains: .google, .youtube, .doc and .lol. \nICANN, which assigns top-level domains to sites worldwide, will announce in June which domains will be added to the existing list that includes \".com\" or \".gov.\"\n\"In 2016, it\u2019s estimated that almost half of the world\u2019s population will be online, yet nearly 50 percent of the websites we visit are found in the .com top-level domain (TLD), which was among the first TLDs created in 1984,\" Google wrote on its Official Blog. \n\"Despite the great opportunities the web has enabled for people around the world, there is still a lingering question about the diversity of the domain space (given that the number of generic TLDs has only increased by 14 in the last 28 years).\"\nGoogle aims to grow the number of TLDs in four categories, such as trademarks (such as .google), those related to its core business (.docs), ones that improve the user experience and increase the identification of certain genres (.youtube) and fun options (.lol).\nThe search engine giant also noted that it plans to keep security and abuse prevention top of mind in creating a positive experience for web users.\n\"We\u2019re just beginning to explore this potential source of innovation on the web, and we are curious to see how these proposed new TLDs will fare in the existing TLD environment,\" the company says. \n\"By opening up more choices for Internet domain names, we hope people will find options for more diverse \u2014 and perhaps shorter \u2014 signposts in cyberspace.\"\nWhat do you think of Google's choice for new top-level domain names? Which ones would you like to see pop up on the web? Let us know in the comments.\nImage via iStock, Hillary Fox"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/05/31/google-domain/>