Landmark Changes to Domain Name System Now Published for Public Comment
Oct 24, 2008
On October 23, 2008, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the non-profit organization responsible for governing the global domain name system, released a draft of the new generic top-level domain (gTLD) Applicant Guidebook for public comment.
If implemented, the new Guidebook would bring about landmark changes to the current Internet naming system that will have significant impact on business entities worldwide.
Currently, there are only 21 active gTLD extensions (such as .com, .net, .biz, etc.) and 249 country-code TLD extensions (such as .ca, .us, .uk, etc.) available for registration. However, under the new expansion initiative, hundreds of new gTLDs could be introduced over the next two years, including brand specific domain extensions like .csc, industry-related domain extensions like .sports and geographically-related domain extensions like .berlin.
A 45-day public comment period on the draft policy documents will commence on October 24, 2008, and end on December 8, 2008.
The draft of the Applicant Guidebook can be downloaded here. More information can be found at: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtld-comments-en.htm.
Please contact us if you have any questions about how these changes could affect your business.