Domain ending .organic latest address to enter digital marketplace

After .bar, .rest and .wine, the internet is about to get another food-related domain that’s aimed at gathering website sellers and producers of organic products under the same umbrella address.

Created to help users quickly identify business with clear domain endings, the online trend has moved to the organic food movement, with global registry services provider Afilias bringing the generic domain to the web.

Businesses that succeed in obtaining the .organic domain, meanwhile, will have to meet certain criteria, Afilias says, though no further details were given.

“Given the popularity of the term ‘organic,’ websites for many products and services now include this term, regardless of whether or not they are actually organic,” said Afilias senior vice president Roland LaPlante in a statement.

“A .organic address enables Internet users to more quickly identify true organic goods and services.”

Last month, Mexico-based domain company Punto 2012 invited restaurant and bar owners to grab domains like .rest, .bar and .cafe for their websites in a bid to help businesses distinguish themselves from the overly generic .com ending.

But an attempt to do the same for the wine industry has been met with much resistance from winemakers around the world, who say there aren’t enough safeguards to protect regional appellations like Bordeaux and Napa.

So winemakers nowhere near Champagne, France for instance, could ostensibly register a domain such as bubblychampagne.wine, critics say.

Other available food-related domain extensions include .coffee, .menus and .recipes.