Would You Pay $195 For A .CPA Domain

Starting July 1, licensed CPA firms would be able to register their .CPA name for an amount of $195 per year that amounts to almost $2000 for a 10 year registration.

.CPA promises to protect the industry from hackers and squatters as it can only be registered by entities verified and recognised by the AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants). Since the .com domains are unrestricted, it is easier for hackers and cybersquatters to create look-alike websites and addresses.

Traditionally, CPA firms have added the word CPA at the end of their domain name, and preferred the dot com extension. A quick search tells that there are 56,715 keywordCPA.com names currently registered, for example, aaronthecpa.com or brandoncpa.com.

Switching to the .CPA TLD would eliminate the need to add the CPA word at the end, thereby making the name shorter and stronger, in addition to providing an enhanced sense of security.

The question remains of the price however. If you were a small CPA firm, would you be willing to pay this amount for your ‘profession’ TLD?

Background Note:

Five entities had originally submitted six applications for the TLD:

1. Top Level Domain Holdings Ltd. submitted a Public Interest Commitment.
2. Donuts Inc. also submitted a Public Interest Commitment under the company name Trixy Canyon.
3. CPA Australia Ltd. filed a Community gTLD application.
4. Google submitted an application through its wholly owned subsidiary – Charleston Road Registry Inc.
5. AICPA filed two applications – one as the Community gTLD and the other as generic TLD. This was done to ensure that it still had a chance to manage the TLD if it was denied community status by ICANN.

AICPA was first in the priority order and hence, the ICANN, in June 2019, awarded the .cpa TLD to it. Neustar is the backend registry. For registration and more information, visit cpa.com.