Google Gets Domain Name Registration OK

NEW YORK — Add domain name registration to the portfolio of Google specialties. Google Inc. is now an official seller of Internet addresses following approval from the Net’s key oversight agency, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

Don’t count on buying names from Google anytime soon, though.

Google says it sought approval as a way to potentially save thousands of dollars yearly in transaction fees for the names it already owns or will buy.

The status also could give Google access to internal data on domain name ownership, which the company could use to better evaluate the credibility of Web sites indexed by the search engine, said Marissa Mayer, Google’s director of consumer Web products.

Like many large companies, Google registers hundreds of names a month, including misspellings and trademarks.

One registration in particular, for "gbrowser.com," has prompted widespread speculation that Google has plans for its own Web browser. Fueling the discussion is Google’s recent hiring of Ben Goodger, one of the lead developers of the Mozilla Firefox browser.

Mayer denied any such plans, saying the domain name registration was purely meant to protect Google’s brand. And Goodger was hired, she said, for his overall engineering skills, not specifically to work on a browser.

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On the Net:

Google: http://www.google.com