New Domain Name Zones Approved
One of the biggest changes to the internet has been announced today. ICANN has approved the changes to the internet addressing system.
Presently, users have a limited range of 21 top level domains to choose from — names that we are all familiar with like .com, .org, .info.
This proposal allows applicants for new names to self-select their domain name so that choices are most appropriate for their customers or potentially the most marketable. It is expected that applicants will apply for targeted community strings such as (the existing) .travel for the travel industry and .cat for the Catalan community (as well as generic strings like .brandname or .yournamehere). There are already interested consortiums wanting to establish city-based top level domain, like .nyc (for New York City), .berlin and .paris.
"One of the most exciting prospect before us is that the expanding system is also being planned to support extensions in the languages of the world", said Peter Dengate Thrush, ICANN's Chairman, "This is going to be very important for the future of the Internet in Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Russia. The present system only supports 37 Roman characters."
What does this mean?
This means that companies that can afford to buy a zone and administer it, can make lots of money reselling domain names to other companies and individuals. However, needless to say the .com zone will most likely remain the coveted zone and large companies and organisations are unlikely to ditch their dot com in favour of setting up their own zones. This change further commercializes the internet and may have the potential to confuse internet users, who are so used to the familiar .com,.com.au, .org, .net. An entity that registers, dot australia may find that users will say australia dot what?
Acceptance of these new naming zones will depend largely on how companies like google, yahoo, microsoft and other internet companies respond. If Google start selling or giving away .google then certainly the acceptance of these zones will grow but if large companies do not take up the ability to create their own zones, then it is unlikely to see widespread acceptance by internet users.