More Internet Addresses in the Making

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has invited public comment on procedures for creating new domain names for general use. Domain names, like those already in general use .com, .net, etc., are used to define web sites and to route email.

Currently there are 120 million registered domain names (unique web addresses) in the world. Of these, 80 million are generic top-level domains (gTLD) as opposed to country code top-level domains like .de for Germany or .ca for Canada, the most common being .com, with 62 million domains.

This will be the first expansion for general use since 2000 when .info and .biz were added. Names added since 2000 have been limited to specific regions or industries. In 2004, ICANN added .travel, .asia, .jobs, .mobi, .cat and .tel.

"This is all about choice. We want the diversity of the world's people, geography and business to be able to be represented in the domain name system," said Dr Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN. "That is why it's so important for people to participate in the development of a new gTLD process. We will get input from businesses, governments, and the public at large in the coming months and at the ICANN meeting in Puerto Rico on 25-29 June 2007."

The ICANN committee, Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), is still reviewing the procedures for considering additional general use names. When GNSO sends a recommendation to the ICANN board, procedures could be adopted by the end of the year, applications for new names could be accepted early next year and new names could be reviewed and added into the system in the June-August 2008 time frame.

ICANN posted a FAQ on the new process. [Dana Baggett]