Google has purchased the website domain .app for $25,001,000. The auction was held by The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, an organisation that oversees the net, with the fee being the highest paid for a domain so far.
Other generic Top Level Domains sold so far include .baby and .tech. Charleston Road Registry, the Google-owned company that bought the domain, said that the domain would be used by app developers.
The firm said: “The proposed gTLD will provide application developers with the ability to customise domain and website name application offerings to signal to the general population of internet users that .app websites are indeed related to applications and application developers.”
The company said that the domain offered a clear authoritative space where applications and information about developers could be found. Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson bought the TLD .baby for just over $3 million, whilst a company called Dot Tech LLC snapped up .tech for $6, 760,000.
The funds paid by the companies are being held by the Icann board and will be used after “consultation with the community”. gTLDs .vip and .salon have also been sold recently.
Google recently announced plans to crack down on adult content posted on its Blogger service.
