ICANN, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has recently voted YES for the most dramatic change to the Internet’s addressing system; the creation of the “new TLDs”. These new Top Level Domains will permit internet users to create hundreds of their own domain name extensions.
The new expansion of the web addresses will allow businesses, organisations and companies to turn their own brand name into new domain extensions. It is expected that applicants will apply for targeted strings such as .sco (Scotland), .coke, .google etc. There are already interested parties who have shown interest in establishing city-based domains strings such as .paris, .nyc and .berlin.
ICANN is expecting between 300 and 1,000 applications for these new TLDs, providing an alternative to existing TLDs such as .com, .co.uk, .net etc.
A term being used for the new TLDs is ‘dot-brand’, we think you will be hearing this term much more in the coming months!
The creation of the new ‘dot-brand’ extension will not come cheap. ICANN applications fee of $185,000 for securing the new TLD’s with $25,000 annual maintenance fee will be affordable for applicants with large marketing budgets.
Applicants seeking one of the new gTLDs will have to meet high technical standards and have a legitimate claim to the name they will be applying for. ICANN will start accepting applications for these new domain extensions on 12th January 2012 through to 12th April 2012.
The approval process could take anything from 9 to 20 months, with the first new ‘dot-brand’ TLD’s being launched early 2013. Owning the specific dot-brand web address will give businesses and companies full control of their brand identity online and will improve the end-user perception.
The 12th January 2012 will be marked as the biggest change to the system of Internet addresses since its official creation in 1984.
