A pair of start-up companies have recently begun working to promote — and ultimately secure — the new domain name “.gay”.

Much like “.com” or “.org” — “.gay” would appear at the end of web-sites wishing to appeal to or advertise their connection to the GLBT community. Businesses, non-profits, GLBT blogs and other websites with Gay links could use the “.gay” suffix to conspicuously promote their homo bona fides.

It’s an interesting proposition. And like anything that deals with Gay rights, media or money, the .gay campaign is already resulting in rival entities hoping to dominate the domain discourse — and potentially make millions of dollars in the process.

In New York, Bonnie Fuller-survivor and former Details and Star magazine editor Joe Dolce has launched the DotGayAlliance — which debuted early this month to help get the .gay domain name registered with ICANN — the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

ICANN is the Internet entity which oversees and manages Top-level Domains (TLD) such as .com, .eu, .net, etc. Last year ICANN announced a new program to allow the use of a potentially infinite number of TLD — up from the current 21. This program will launch next year — and .gay would be one of these new TLDs.

Dolce’s group sees the ascent of .gay as an organic step in the battle for GLBT rights that began with the Stonewall Riots 40 years ago, continued with the fight for AIDS funding/survival via ACT-UP and is now anchored around civil rights and mainstream visibility. “The .GAY top-level domain,” Dolce’s group says, “will provide concentrated Internet real estate for companies to showcase their gay efforts.”

Dolce says his group’s business model is based on the plan behind the Al Gore-backed “.eco” registration campaign. And 51 percent of its profits will be earmarked for GLBT charities worldwide.

In California, meanwhile, dotGAY debuted in June — a three-years-in-the-making effort by Berlin-born/Europe-based Alexander Schubert, who has worked for years in the domain-naming industry.

Schubert is actually hetero — which makes you wonder how/why he has a Castro Street address on his business card.

Anyway, Schubert’s goal is similar to Dolce’s — achieve formal .gay approval via ICANN and help it become the TLD-of-choice for GLBT businesses and groups.

dotGAY, too, says it will have a philanthropic component — initially pegged at 50 percent of profits, but soon to be more generously revised (note Dolce’s 51 percent profit donation promise).

Of course with folks having to pay for .gay’s use, money and profit are certainly potential issues here. Especially considering both Dolce and Schubert’s groups will have to shell out $185,000 to simply to apply for ICANN-approval.  And this is just the beginning. Schubert says running the .gay organization could actually cost upwards of $500,000 with operations costs factored in.

Which leads to the following question — why two separate groups essentially advocating for the exact same goal via the exact same process?  Because ICANN will ultimately award .gay to only ONE company — Dolce’s DotGayAlliance, Schubert’s dotGAY, or perhaps another future arrival.

Whoever controls .gay will then be able to sell the domain on to folks wishing to use it for their website.  And with .gay far more recognizable and brandable than, say, .eco, or .travel — the potential .gay market could be huge.

The porn possibilities alone could be massive! Even a random domain like “.info” has over 5 million users.

And interestingly, a similar battle is actually brewing between Al Gore and former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev over the fate of the equally-lucrative “.eco” domain — with each backing rival registration companies much like Dolce and Schubert for .gay.

The final ICANN decision won’t come until mid-2010.  Schubert suspects .gay could ultimately wind-up sold via auction — with the price tag reaching into the millions. Which is why both groups are right now clearly clamoring for investors.

A sexy, seven-figure .gay sale would certainly make for good media fodder. But it would also mean .gay’s eventual owner would have to spend years toiling to recoup that investment — which would long delay those profits promised to charities.

We suspect the .gay battle is just beginning — and with those millions of dollars at stake, it could get fierce!