The TLD surprised me, I didn't know you could request one. The article I found that covers off on purchasing (leasing?) a TLD ironically used Google as an example. The article is from 2011.
"The process itself may be relatively straightforward. ICANN will make applications available (get the May 2011 draft of the Applicant Guidebook) from January 12, 2012 through April 12, 2012, giving companies time to develop a marketing plan and come up with justification to pay the $185,000 application fee and, if approved, the annual $25,000 fee. "
If Google buys it, they'll probably just buy it to squat it, rather than use it. They're probably butthurt they lost out on the .blog gTLD. Google wanted to make it a completely walled garden TLD only for Blogger users. And Google cost us the option of having a .dev gTLD, that's for Google's use only.
"Let's not forget, the Californian goliath had tried to bag .blog, which it intended to pair with its Blogger service so that the only way to get a .blog domain would be to use Blogger."
"The process itself may be relatively straightforward. ICANN will make applications available (get the May 2011 draft of the Applicant Guidebook) from January 12, 2012 through April 12, 2012, giving companies time to develop a marketing plan and come up with justification to pay the $185,000 application fee and, if approved, the annual $25,000 fee. "
Source: http://adrianroselli.com/2011/06/make-your-own-tld-i-want-ba...