Domain names are set to explode under a new agreement. ICANN Directors to usher in one of the biggest changes ever to Net names, it said today.
The number of Internet address endings, known as generic top-level domains (gTLDs) which includes the likes of .com, .org and .net. are set to explode from the current 22 to an unlimited number.
New top level domains will fundamentally change the way people use the net and and “virtually every organization with an online presence could be affected,” ICANN, the body charged with creating naming structures for the net, said today.
Internet address names will be able to end with almost any word in any language, offering organizations around the world the opportunity to market themselves in innovative ways in any category, and will revolutionise web names as we type them today.
This latest move towards open internet names “respects the rights of groups to create new Top Level Domains in any language or script” ICANN declared.
“ICANN has opened the Internet’s naming system to unleash the global human imagination,”said Rod Beckstrom, its President and CEO,
The decision to proceed with the gTLD program follows years of debate around the issue between Internet community, business and governments. Dot com was first ushered in as a principal web address 26 years ago.
Applications for new gTLDs are to kick off January 12 next – for a 90 day period – and will set applicants back US$185,000.
The decision to launch the new gTLD program raised the curtain on ICANN’s 41st public meeting, taking place in Singapore and is just one of the issues that will dominate the weeklong meeting.
On Wednesday, the focus will turn to cyber security with the inauguration in Singapore of a specially built “hardened” facility, the first of three helping to secure domain names globally.