It's well known that Google's competitors aren't keen on it getting hold of the .search top-level domain. But the company has outlined a new plan which would make use of the string as a dotless domain—open for use by any other search company, too.
In a letter to ICANN, Google outlined that it would opt to use the "search" domain in a slightly quirky new way. It would use it as a dotless domain — think http://search — which would use a redirect and a "new technical standard" to provide results from whichever search service a user designates. In other words, it wouldn't necessarily use Google, at least if you didn't want it to, as Tech Crunch points out.
The letter also detailed similar ideas for domains like .app, .blog, and .cloud, in each case the domain simply being a springboard for whatever platform or service the user chooses. The idea, presumably, is to create a single jumping off point for all users which still allows them to use the service they want—or need—to. Of course, whether that's enough to convince competitors and ICANN that the idea is OK remains to be seen. [Tech Crunch]
Image by AP
DISCUSSION
I am continually baffled by anyone that actually goes to a search engine to start a search (be it typing google.com or bing.com or what have you). Are there any browsers these days that don't automatically search from the url bar? Even IE10 does this.
That said, I can see how this would be a big deal for people that don't actually know they can do this/don't understand the internet that well.