Apple’s long–awaited online storage service for iTunes could be named iCloud, if only rumours are to be believed. Apple has reportedly purchased the domain name icloud.com for $4.5 million from Swedish company called Xcerion. The firm has recently renamed its service CloudMe.

Xcerion would not confirm or deny reports that it had sold the domain name to Apple but the company is still listed as the owner of the domain on the Whois database that indexes web domains.

Apple has long been rumoured to be planning an iTunes–in–the–cloud service that would allow its customers to access their music, films and TV shows over the internet instead of needing to carry them with them on an iPod.

The technology company has not commented on plans for such a service but it has been building a large server farm in North Carolina, USA, that is about five times larger than its current data centre in California.

Even if Apple is planning to launch an online storage or streaming service for iTunes and even if it had purchased the domain name icloud.com, it’s still possible that the service will not have that name. Apple often purchases domain names and doesn’t end up using them.

In late 2009, Apple was revealed to have purchased the domain name islate.com, leading to speculation that the company’s forthcoming tablet computer would carry this name. Needless to say, that speculation was incorrect.