Apple Could Launch iPods.com, iPhones.com and iPad.com

After almost a decade of turning a blind eye to speculators squatting on domain names prominently featuring Apple’s trademarks, Cupertino is finally trying to take back iPods.com. Once it has the domain, though, what does Apple plan to do with it?

The Cupertino, Calif. company recently complained to ICANN, the Internet domain governing body, asking iPods.com – the plural version of a domain it already owns – be transferred to the tech giant. Such requests typically are made after negotiations with the owner break down. The term “squatter” is usually thrown around and regulators tend to side with the big name (and big monied) brand.

Until Wednesday, the iPods.com domain sent visitors to MP3Gold.com, an MP3 download site. (However, the domain no longer resolves, according to reports.) The question unanswered is why Apple waited nine years to get control of a domain using the iPod brandname.

A more pressing matter for Apple may have been the $4.5 million spent to acquire the iCloud.com domain. CEO Steve Jobs reportedly will unveil the cloud-based iTunes service at next week’s WWDC.

Perhaps the iPods.com domain was put on the back-burner because the initial Apple device has lost some importance. With 80 percent of the MP3 player market-share, how urgent is controlling every iPod-esque domain? On the flip side, though, Apple has yet to go after iPad.com.

This gets back to our original question: does Apple have a plan? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.