Web Domain Suffixes To Be Increased

In what has been described as the ‘biggest change for the online world in years’ the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) has voted to allow the creation of new suffixes. Thus, Internet address names will be able to end with any word and in any language. According to Icann’s president and chief executive officer, “Icann has opened the Internet’s addressing system to the limitless possibilities of the human imagination”.

Therefore, Internet users can start to expect seeing several new generic top-level domain names (gTLDs) such as .bbc, .apple, .fifa and so on in addition to the existing 22 gTLDs and 250 country-level domain names such as .ng and .uk in the near future.

It will cost around $185,000 to apply for the suffixes, and corporations and cities (which are expected to be among the first) would need to show that they have a legitimate claim to the name they intend on buying. Applications to Icann are not expected to begin until (12 January) 2012.

The vote, which is the biggest change since .com began 26 years ago, completes a 6-year negotiation process.

Talking Point

Do you agree with allowing the creation of new Internet suffixes and can you predict where this historic decision will take us?