.Horse Domain Registry Service Offered

.HORSE has announced it is offering a service in which horse industry professionals and enthusiasts can reserve a domain name ending in .horse, which is among a group of new domains now approved to increase choices in the domain name space.

According to a release from .HORSE, beginning Nov. 19 anyone will be able to reserve their domain names ending in .horse, with names like thoroughbred.horse, tack.horse, Ireland.horse, and many others available to the public for the first time.

There currently are only 22 generic top-level domains—the letters to the right of the dot—such as the familiar .com, .net, and .org, according to .HORSE, and the expansion was developed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to increase choices in the domain name space.

Using .HORSE, equine industry and horse enthusiasts can reserve the name of their choice on a first come, first serve, fully refundable basis. The cost of the service can be as low as $39.95, according to the release.

"Reserved names cannot be 100% guaranteed at this point because under ICANN rules, trademark holders have first right to register names that match their trademarks," the release stated. "But if not claimed by a trademark owner or blocked by regulatory authorities, reservations will convert into actual registrations when .HORSE goes live, currently estimated for the fall of 2014. In cases where a reserved name does not convert into a registration, any reservation fees will be fully refunded."

.HORSE is owned by Top Level Domain Holdings (TLDH), a publicly traded company managed by  Minds + Machines, a wholly owned subsidiary of TLDH, which provides full-service consulting and registry services to new TLD applicants, including .HORSE.

"You want to claim your .HORSE domain name as soon as possible," Cyndi Greathouse, marketing director for .HORSE, said in a release, "and the priority reservation program lets you do that today. Any domain name you currently use as a .com or .org, you should reserve as a .horse domain to secure consistency for your brand and name."