Google has said it plans to run an array of new top-level domains, including ".google", ".youtube" and ".docs", as part of a major expansion of the web's addressing system.
The search giant would also run ".lol", a top-level domain that would refer to the common online abbreviation for "laugh out loud", as the firm thought that ".lol" had "interesting and creative potential".
According to The Telegraph, Google had kept its plans secret in an attempt to avoid rival bids until Thursday, when the deadline for applications passed.
In total Google has made more than 50 applications to Icann, which is the closest organisation to a governing body for the internet, for new alternatives to ".com" or ".co.uk".
It signaled to the fact that Google could offer each YouTube channel its own simple address. For instance, the current youtube.com/joebloggs could become joebloggs.youtube.
Vint Cerf, one of the inventors of the internet, who now works for Google, said that an expanded addressing system could make it easier for web users to find things online.
"By opening up more choices for Internet domain names, we hope people will find options for more diverse and perhaps shorter - signposts in cyberspace," he wrote on the firm's blog.
The full list of almost 2,000 applications is due to be published on 13 June, because of a delay caused by a technical glitch in the application system.
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