Big hitters sign up to .tel directory

Many of the world's most familiar names have pledged their allegiance to the new .tel domain-driven directory service, following its official launch earlier this month.

The so-called Sunrise period whereby legitimate trademark owners can register enjoyed a flurry of applications within hours of its opening, according to registry operator Telnic .

Practically as soon as the two-month Sunrise period opened, the likes of Apple, BP, British Airways, Gap, Google, Microsoft, Sony, Starbucks and Virgin among others had signed up.

"We're delighted to see applications from such a breadth of businesses and categories worldwide. Trademark owners have obviously got the message that .tel is a huge departure from .com-type domains that host web content and is instead an innovative platform for communications," said Khashayar Mahdavi, Telnic's chief executive, in a statement.

The Sunrise period will last until 2 February next year, after which other brand owners with unprotected trademark will be able to enter the ICANN-approved Universal Dispute Resolution Process (UDRP) to re-gain them.

Maggie has been a journalist since 1999, starting her career as an editorial assistant on then-weekly magazine Computing, before working her way up to senior reporter level. In 2006, just weeks before ITPro was launched, Maggie joined Dennis Publishing as a reporter. Having worked her way up to editor of ITPro, she was appointed group editor of CloudPro and ITPro in April 2012. She became the editorial director and took responsibility for ChannelPro, in 2016.

Her areas of particular interest, aside from cloud, include management and C-level issues, the business value of technology, green and environmental issues and careers to name but a few.