If ICANN wasn't just a giant extortion racket they would have yanked this from Google squatting on it years ago - clearly they haven't actually met any of the listed goals considering they have never used the TLD (or opened them for general availability like their original application implies).
In reality all ICANN cares about is $$$
The list of all their owned TLDs are at [0]. There is an icannwiki page with all the ones they’ve applied for, but not just the ones they currently own.
0: https://ntldstats.com/registry/Charleston-Road-Registry-Inc
They also have .new, enabling links like https://sheets.new.
And .dev, which IIRC they were not going to make public but then did. And requires SSL
ICANN is a fat American corporate body.
At some point ISLANNDs (Internet Small Local Authority for Name and Number Designations) could override it. That way, you could link to http://google.lol/posts/39-put-google-in-the-can and your cohort will enjoy this and the rest of those posts making fun of google, while the rest of the world is disappointed over dead links.
Is "TLD hogging" going to be the new "domain hogging"?
Could someone write a browser extension to override DNS?
And basically create a new domain system for people with that extension installed?
Fix the title OP to just Google owns .meme or something since the rest is incorrect.
You can have a cool TLD too. You just have to bribe ICANN.
What does it take to register a new TLD?
Ah, every time I read about vanity TLDs (are they called that? Can I call them that?) I sigh at the brokenness of attaching structure/constraints to domains and TLDs...
At least the country TLDs made sense, plus things like .org for non-profits and .gov for US governments. And then things like bit.ly, look.at, blah.io overrode all of that. I wonder what ".lol" should be for, parody sites? Like whitehouse.lol, google.lol? ycombinator.lol? The first 2 probably can't exist because hey, this is an oligocracy.
Congrats to AOL, I guess, their idea with AOL keywords was actually superior, and we're returning to that. Already on TV ads that I see, they just say "Search for $BRAND/$PRODUCT to find out more".
In a sense, dangerous. Google has a history of (and currently practices) censoring viewpoints it disagrees with. Will its censorship reach extend from omitting / deprioritizing search results to entirely canceling those using its TLDs that it deems undesirable?
Google does not own .web. They were in the running to acquire it but it will ultimately go to Verisign (who runs .com) after a ~5 year legal dispute.