Posted on 05/11/2007 8:11:04 AM PDT by ShadowAce
NEW YORK (AP) - New Internet addresses for general use could start appearing in the summer of 2008 under a timeline the Internet's key oversight agency announced Thursday.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers invited public comment on procedures for creating new names, the first expansion for general use since 2000. Names added since then have been limited to specific regions or industries.
"This is all about choice," ICANN Chief Executive Paul Twomey said in a statement. "We want the diversity of the world's people, geography and business to be able to be represented in the domain name system."
Domain names are key for helping computers find Web sites and route e-mail. There are currently about 250 domain name suffixes, most of them for specific countries such as ".fr" for France. General-use names include ".com" and ".net."
ICANN solicited additional applications in 2004 and has approved six regional or industry-specific names, such as ".travel" and ".asia," while rejecting ".xxx" for the adult entertainment industry.
Some ICANN critics have complained that the agency has been slow to approve new names and that the procedures have sometimes been arbitrary. Businesses and trademark owners, meanwhile, worry that more names will lead to more cybersquatting, the practice of grabbing names before companies can in hopes of selling them at a premium.
ICANN did not specify how individuals and groups would be able to seek new names, but the group indicated that the procedures would be streamlined to permit "a much wider variety of them to be added in a timely, predictable and efficient manner."
An ICANN committee, the Generic Names Supporting Organization, still is reviewing the procedures. Once it sends a recommendation to the ICANN board, procedures could be adopted by year's end and applications for new names could be accepted early next year.
Twomey said new names could be reviewed and added into the system in the June-August 2008 timeframe.
The new addresses are likely to be in English.
ICANN could wrap up the technical work on non-Latin scripts by year's end, but it still must resolve policy questions such as who should decide what countries get what suffixes and how to make sure a domain in one language isn't inadvertently offensive in another.
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On the Net:
ICANN information on new names:
http://www.icann.org/topics/new-gtld-strategy-faq.htm
What about the libertarian approach?
How about allowing anyone with sufficient capital to create a DNS root server using any suffix they like, and sell the names to whoever they want to sell them to?
I hope they add .xxx and then the US requires it’s use.
I don't view that question as an economic/political one, but more as a sysadmin.
I would think that, like any good sysadmin, ICANN is trying to control that type of addition to the network for technical and usability reasons. Once someone sets up a root DNS like that, the others would all have to adjust as well in order for the rest of the net to find the new server, and the new TLDs. I thin that out-of-control additions like that would render the Internet useless.
And for Chinese website, .chicom
Well, we already have the .us TLD, so the .usa would be kinda redundant. :)
Anything that is .cn is pretty much edited by .chicom already.
True, .usa would be redundant but it adds another whole range of American addresses in addition to .us
I want a .wtf website! Maybe .omg would do.
That's already happening, but nobody points to those root servers so they're useless.
But say there was a "root server indexer" that people could go to to find all of the root servers out there, and anybody could join his root server to it. The problem comes when more than one root server decides to host the same suffix.
I want .dot
Imagine Slashdot’s domain name then, “To go to Slashdot, type ‘slash dot dot dot’” and watch even worse confusion.
I’ve never been a fan of these “specialty domains.” Do we really need a “.travel” domain, for instance? Or a “.jobs?” Most of those services would do just fine with a .com or a .net. Besides, having to remember one of those boutique suffixes is a big pain in the butt and would do more harm than good in attracting customers.
There will soon be so many TLDs that the concept disappears, and names will simply be random.
Is a travel agency business specializing in the Caribbean area going to have .COM, .BIZ, .TRAVEL, .CARIB, or -- more likely -- need to have all of them???
This is nothing but a way to sell more domain names.
STUPID IDEA. Unless you're a domain-name seller, of course.
EXACTLY.
You think you're kidding.... you're not. Just wait another couple years.
I want .lightbulbjokes. At least that would have some historical relevance.
Personally, I like the KISS theory. All these TLDs, as you said, are just going to confuse the average person.
There is nothing whatsoever stopping you from creating a root server and putting whatever names you want on it.
You'll have difficulties getting people to point to you though.
Google 'alternet'.
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