As of 11 AM Eastern Standard Time on January 20th, 2016, anybody can buy a domain for their website that ends in “.cars,” “.car” or “.auto” as opposed to “.com” or any of the other numerous suffixes currently in use. Go get one already.
The company orchestrating this has set up the simple “go.cars” to shill the new domains.
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Originally marketed toward car companies, dealerships and various corporate entities that are part of our automotive infrastructure, the floodgates have now been opened for any chump to roll up and register whatever “.cars” (or “.car” or “.auto”) they’re willing to pay for.
The way it seems to work; you check if the car-related URL you want is available on go.cars, and then get redirected to the domain-name selling site of your choice as long as that’s Uniregistry, Network Solutions, GoDaddy, or Name.com.
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Those sites will then try to upsell you on site hosting services, customer support, and other things you might need if you want to run a website.
But don’t forget you can always just buy the name and sit on it to try and sell it later, or just set it up to redirect to your WordPress or GeoCities page or whatever site you choose, really.
(Assuming, of course, that the company can’t just take it away from you for illegally cybersquatting on a brand name you don’t own.)
So far everything I’ve tried is being offered at the same price: $2,099.
I expect prices will come down. I mean, not on a super-hot internet property like “erotica.auto” but less-popular and nonsensical terms and uncommon proper nonous should get affordable after a while. Heck, I think I only paid $10 for cutesloths.com. At least, it was cheap enough that I keep forgetting to link it to my Tumblr page.
I think I’ll concede my right to buy andrew.car for that kind of money. But can you come up with a handle that’s worth shelling out for?
Images via go.cars, name.com
Contact the author at andrew@jalopnik.com.
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