INTERNET TO GET HUNDREDS OF NEW DOMAIN NAMES
INTERNET TO GET HUNDREDS OF NEW DOMAIN NAMES
(14 Jun 2012) Proposals for Internet addresses ending in “.pizza,” “.space” and “.auto” are among the nearly two thousand submitted as part of the largest expansion in the online address system.
Apple Inc., Sony Corp. and American Express Co. are among companies that are seeking names with their brands.
Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. Sought dozens of names, including “.app,” and “.play.”
The wine company Gallo Vineyards Inc. wants “.barefoot.”
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced the proposals for Internet suffixes, the “.com” part of an Internet address, in London on Wednesday.
“This is an historic day for the Internet and for more than two (b) billion people around the world who depend upon it – because the internet is about to change forever,” said ICANN Chief Executive Officer Rod Beckstrom.
They now go through a review process that could take months or years.
From a technical standpoint, the names let Internet-connected computers know where to send email and locate websites.
But they’ve come to mean much more.
For Amazon.com Inc., for instance, the domain name is the heart of the company, not just an address.
Kurt Pritz, ICANN’s senior vice-president for stakeholder relations, cautioned that applications for customised suffixes would be scrutinised before being approved.
“Each application will go through a thorough and objective evaluation by independent panels of experts before a decision is made, whether it will be approved,” Pritz said.
“Some names might be provocative to some and invite that sort of scrutiny right away,” Pritz added.
Companies and groups had to pay 185 thousand US dollars per proposal.
Suffixes could potentially generate (m) millions of US dollars a year for winning bidders as they sell names ending in some of the approved names.
Critics of the expansion include a coalition of business groups worried about protecting their brands in newly created names.
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