CUNA on Tuesday submitted an application for “.creditunion” tothe Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which hasbeen taking applications from individuals and groups to buy therights to new “top-level domain names”, also known as the words tothe right of the dot in an Internet address.

The new names can focus on a community of businesses orservices, such as “.creditunion” or “.news”. Others may be used tomarket specific brands or products.

According to ICANN, thousands of applications were expected to be filed bythis week when the organization closed the application process.Those approved would likely go live in 2013.

According to CUNA President/CEO Bill Cheney, CUNA's move toreserve a credit union specific top-level domain, such as.creditunion, ensures this important identifier will stay in creditunion hands and will allow the credit union movement tocollectively take full advantage of the next stage of the Internet's development and growth.

“Through the financial support of CUNA Mutual Group and CO-OPFinancial Services, which made our application filing possible,this unique credit union top-level domain name, if approved, wouldbe available to credit unions to supplement or replace theirexisting web names,” Cheney said. He estimated the annual cost foran individual credit union to obtain its own web address under acredit union specific top-level domain name to be $100 to $200annually per credit union.

Earlier this year, a CUNA-sponsored survey among CEOs ofCUNA-member credit unions, members of its Marketing and Technologycouncils and others, found that nearly 60% of credit unionrespondents said they were interested in adding a credit unionspecific domain name, such as “.creditunion” to their creditunion's Internet applications.

Additionally, CUNA said, nearly 70% indicated that, if thecredit union system were to obtain a new top-level domain name suchas “.creditunion”, they would obtain an additional domain name fortheir credit union or change their current domain to the new“.creditunion.”