Davey Winder
Wednesday, 25 June 2008 02:30
Business IT -
Networking
Page 1 of 2
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is set to vote on what could prove to be one of the most important shake ups in recent web history. The vote in Paris on Thursday will decide if people can buy vanity top level domains ending in just about anything...
ICANN is holding its
32nd International Public ICANN Meeting in Paris this week, and it might just change the
way you see the web for ever. Charged with managing the Internet naming
scheme, ICANN has traditionally been resistant to moves away from
familiar domain names such as .com
That intransigence could be swept aside on
Thursday when ICANN votes on whether to allow people to buy pretty much
any top-level domain suffix that they want. Yes, you read that right,
anything at all as long as it is not offensive or illegal one assumes.
Oh, and no more than 64 characters in length.
It has yet to be confirmed if the .xxx top level domain that ICANN has consistently voted against will be on the banned list or not.
Apart from the obvious .love and .hate domains, it opens up the way for
.intel, .linux and even .itwire should the boss fancy it. He would have
to have deep pockets though as the new domains, if approved, are
expected to cost anything up to AUD $50,000 a pop!
Most analysts agree, therefore, that this move will be seen as a way to
widen the commercial appeal of the Internet as individuals such as
myself are unlikely to be able to afford the luxury of a .winder domain
for example.
More to the point, there is also likely to be some restrictions placed
upon the registration in order to foil the plans of domain squatters.
It is expected that registered trademark holders will get first dibs on
domains. Personally I am not sure that ICANN needs to adopt such a
measure. Surely the ridiculously high registration fee is deterrent
enough? CONTINUED
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