Google to Introduce .App Domains at I/O Conference

Google will host its annual developer conference, I/O, from May 8th – 10th in Mountain View, California. Domain names do not generally play any role in the I/O developer conference, but Google is going to be giving some attention to a new extension in one of the sessions.

On May 8th (tomorrow) from 4pm – 5pm, Google will be hosting a session called Introducing .app domain names, and how to secure them. The event will be hosted by Google employees Ben McIlwain and Adrienne Porter Felt. Here’s how the session is described:

“.app, the web’s first secure-only open top-level domain (TLD) for mobile apps and developers, is launching on May 8. This in-depth technical talk covers use cases for .app domain names, HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), best practices for secure website development, and the unique security benefits of .app domains thanks to TLD-wide HSTS.”

As you may know, Google paid $25 million to operate the .App domain name registry. This means Google will be responsible for selling .App domain names via its domain registrar partners such as GoDaddy, 101Domain, Name.com and others. Google also operates its Google Domains consumer facing domain registrar.

I think .App is going to be one of the most popular and widely used new gTLD domain name extensions. I have no idea if there is money to be made by domain investors with .App domain names, but I do think a lot of people will buy them. That is the reason I decided to pre-register 4 .App domain names for the standard registration fee at GoDaddy. I highly doubt I will participate in any auctions should there be any, but I thought I would give these a shot.