The term “OTT” stands for “over-the-top,” which is a term that refers to the delivery of film and TV content over the internet without the need for traditional cable or satellite pay-TV services. However, in the context of a Top Level Domain (TLD), there seems to be confusion because, as per the records of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which is responsible for the global coordination of the DNS Root, IP addressing, and other internet protocol resources, an “.ott” TLD does not currently exist.
Top Level Domains (TLDs) are the end part of domain names, such as “.com,” “.edu,” or “.org,” and they give users a hint about the nature of the website associated with the domain. For example, “.edu” denotes an educational institution, “.org” an organization, etc. Accordingly, these TLDs are assigned and managed by IANA under the Department of Commerce in the United States.
The reason for the non-existence of an “.ott” TLD could be that to create a new TLD an application needs to be made to ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). This procedure is extensive and expensive, having a base cost of $185,000 USD and possibly reaching up to several million dollars due to auction. Once the application is approved, there is a $25,000 annual fee to ICANN (Source: ICANN).
Numerous companies such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and others who operate in the OTT space use conventional TLDs like “.com” or country-specific TLDs like “.co.uk” or “.fr” etc. There are indeed branded TLDs, such as “.google,” “.apple,” or “.amazon,” but even these tech giants prefer to use a .com for their main sites likely due to the public familiarity and inherent trust of .com domains.
For example, Amazon Prime operates under “primevideo.com” and Netflix uses “netflix.com,” all of which are using the renowned “.com” TLD. There is a substantial number of other TLDs available like .tv which seems to be popular for video content related services. For example, twitch uses twitch.tv as their primary domain. It is worth mentioning that “twitch.com” also redirects to “twitch.tv”, showing the popularity and trust associated with .com domains.
In conclusion, there are no current plans or records for a specifically designated “.ott” TLD, and companies are operating under conventional TLDs like “.com” and “.tv” within the over-the-top media services industry.
Sources:
https://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt
https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/application-2012-02-25-en
https://lookup.icann.org/lookup
