News
[PSUs]| Friday 11th May 2007 |
The new process will determine how gTLDs are proposed and approved and ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) believes that it should allow for a much wider variety of them to be added in a timely, predictable and efficient manner.
ICANN expects that with the public input, the system for approving new gTLDs should be completed by the end of the year. Applications for new top-level domains could be accepted starting in early 2008.
'If the new approval process comes on-line as planned, the global Internet could see new top-level domains added and available between June and August 2008,' said ICANN's president and CEO Dr Paul Twomey.
ICANN has overseen two previous extensions of the Internet space: first in 2000 when seven TLDs - .aero, .biz,
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'When ICANN was founded in 1998, only a few TLDs, including .com, were generally available to the public for registration of domain names. Our mission has been to expand the number of TLDs available to users - and we have made great progress,' Dr Twomey said. 'When the new approval process is complete, Internet users around the globe will have more choice in the TLD market.'
Currently there are 120 million registered domain names (unique Web addresses) in the world. Of these, 80 million are gTLDs, as opposed to country code top-level domains like .uk). The most commonly used gTLD is '.com', with 62 million domains.
'This is all about choice, Dr Twomey said. 'We want the diversity of the world's people, geography and business to be able to be represented in the domain name system. That is why it's so important for people to participate in the development of a new gTLD process.'
ICANN has posted an FAQ on the creation of new gTLds at icann.org/topics/new-gtld-strategy-faq.htm.
See the News-Opinion column in the July PC Pro (p20) for more on Internet gTLDs.
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