Vanity top-level domains (TLDs), which seemed like such a good idea a year ago to Walmart, Safeway, Amazon and Google, are slowly grinding their way forward. Last week ICANN, which is selling the new dot-names at $185,000 each, said it has finalized the registrar's contract for the new names. Unfortunately, that doesn't help the would-be owners of .walmart, .amazon, .book and .grocery—they're still stuck in ICANN's flypaper-like approval process.
To be fair, after more than a year, 552 vanity TLDs (out of 1,930 applications) have actually made it through the process to the point where there are no objections and they don't match other applicants. That includes retail-related terms like .camera, .clothing, .market, .markets, .pharmacy, .shoes and .toys, along with 23 actual retailer names. They're ready to start getting their contracts. Everybody else still has hurdles to climb.