chicot60
06-20-2011, 11:22 AM
By Sam Holmes
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--The end of the dot-com era is over--welcome to the dot-anything age.
The organization that regulates the world's Internet domain names Monday approved changes that will allow companies and individuals to potentially register any name they like in almost any language as domain suffixes, a step that could change the way users navigate the Web.
Not-for-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as ICANN, said the aim for a much more open, albeit infinitely messier, approach to domain name registration will spur a new rush of innovation. An identifying suffix--currently limited to predominantly two or three-letter tags such as .com, .org or .uk --could also be a helpful branding tool for corporations, especially banks keen to boost their online security credentials. It may also provide entrepreneurs an opportunity to generate new business by selling second-level domains.
"This may be the dawn of a new age of online innovation in the domain name space....the Internet's addressing system has just been opened up to the limitless possibilities of human imagination and creativity," said ICANN Chief Executive Rod Beckstrom at a media briefing Monday.
Adrian Kinderis, chief executive of Melbourne-based AusRegistry International, which is the registrar for the country domains of Australia (.au), Oman (.om), Qatar (.qa) and United Arab Emirates (.ae) and is helping clients prepare their application for top level domains, said the majority of applicants are either corporations looking to secure their brand identity or entrepreneurs looking for a valuable plot of cyber real estate.
A top-level domain name of up to 63 characters of just about any string of letters or numbers can be registered, ICANN said. For instance, someone could turn "asknotwhatyourcountrycandoforyouaskwhatyoucandofor yourcountry" into a domain. But applicants will need to spend US$185,000 upfront just to apply for a domain string.
Applications open January 12, 2012 and close April 12 and the first of the new domains could be online by November next year.
ICANN said the hefty fee is based on the estimated cost of processing the applications including possible litigation and other contingencies although the auction process could potentially generate some sizeable revenues that would go into the group's reserves.
The winner will be determined by a panel who will decide on the appropriateness of an applicant according to a series of criteria such as how the applicant plans to use the domain and whether the business model is sustainable.
Applicants will be refunded according to how early they withdraw their application ahead of the announcement of the winning applicant.
ICANN said it will reject applicants that look like cashed-up cyber squatters looking to take advantage of brand names or trademarks that clearly don't belong to them so in theory only one applicant would realistically be eligible to buy a domain such as .cocacola.
Where it gets trickier but potentially more lucrative for ICANN is with more semantically generic domains such as .anything.
If ICANN can't decide on the single most appropriate candidate out of a group for a particular name, the process moves to an auction, in which case the winner will likely be the one with the deepest pockets.
The organization's chairman, Peter Dengate Thrush, said at the media briefing he expects most contentions would be settled outside the application process before they reach the auction stage.
"But if they do (go to auction) then that money would go back to the (ICANN) community for good work," he said, without specifying how ICANN could spend the money.
This is not the first time ICANN has sought to expand the number of generic domain names. Early last decade a handful of generic domain names such as .info, .biz and .museum were introduced to ease demand for the more popular tags though the reception for these new names was generally lukewarm.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110620-703270.html
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--The end of the dot-com era is over--welcome to the dot-anything age.
The organization that regulates the world's Internet domain names Monday approved changes that will allow companies and individuals to potentially register any name they like in almost any language as domain suffixes, a step that could change the way users navigate the Web.
Not-for-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as ICANN, said the aim for a much more open, albeit infinitely messier, approach to domain name registration will spur a new rush of innovation. An identifying suffix--currently limited to predominantly two or three-letter tags such as .com, .org or .uk --could also be a helpful branding tool for corporations, especially banks keen to boost their online security credentials. It may also provide entrepreneurs an opportunity to generate new business by selling second-level domains.
"This may be the dawn of a new age of online innovation in the domain name space....the Internet's addressing system has just been opened up to the limitless possibilities of human imagination and creativity," said ICANN Chief Executive Rod Beckstrom at a media briefing Monday.
Adrian Kinderis, chief executive of Melbourne-based AusRegistry International, which is the registrar for the country domains of Australia (.au), Oman (.om), Qatar (.qa) and United Arab Emirates (.ae) and is helping clients prepare their application for top level domains, said the majority of applicants are either corporations looking to secure their brand identity or entrepreneurs looking for a valuable plot of cyber real estate.
A top-level domain name of up to 63 characters of just about any string of letters or numbers can be registered, ICANN said. For instance, someone could turn "asknotwhatyourcountrycandoforyouaskwhatyoucandofor yourcountry" into a domain. But applicants will need to spend US$185,000 upfront just to apply for a domain string.
Applications open January 12, 2012 and close April 12 and the first of the new domains could be online by November next year.
ICANN said the hefty fee is based on the estimated cost of processing the applications including possible litigation and other contingencies although the auction process could potentially generate some sizeable revenues that would go into the group's reserves.
The winner will be determined by a panel who will decide on the appropriateness of an applicant according to a series of criteria such as how the applicant plans to use the domain and whether the business model is sustainable.
Applicants will be refunded according to how early they withdraw their application ahead of the announcement of the winning applicant.
ICANN said it will reject applicants that look like cashed-up cyber squatters looking to take advantage of brand names or trademarks that clearly don't belong to them so in theory only one applicant would realistically be eligible to buy a domain such as .cocacola.
Where it gets trickier but potentially more lucrative for ICANN is with more semantically generic domains such as .anything.
If ICANN can't decide on the single most appropriate candidate out of a group for a particular name, the process moves to an auction, in which case the winner will likely be the one with the deepest pockets.
The organization's chairman, Peter Dengate Thrush, said at the media briefing he expects most contentions would be settled outside the application process before they reach the auction stage.
"But if they do (go to auction) then that money would go back to the (ICANN) community for good work," he said, without specifying how ICANN could spend the money.
This is not the first time ICANN has sought to expand the number of generic domain names. Early last decade a handful of generic domain names such as .info, .biz and .museum were introduced to ease demand for the more popular tags though the reception for these new names was generally lukewarm.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110620-703270.html