ICANN OKs New Top-Level Domains

A radical handshaking-prepared of the Net's domain describ organization has been approved, allowing for an about infinite figure of new area suffixes — just only for those with pile of cash in.

The not-for-profit Internet Corporation for Appointed Names and Numbers (ICANN) decided at a merging in Singapore Monday that IT will vulnerable an application window for proposing new field suffixes, which could be almost any word in some language, including those that use different scripts, like Arabic or Japanese.

The catch is that the lotion for a new suffix, which is a rather embroiled written document, must be attended past a $185,000 lotion fee, which ICANN bequeath keep regardless of the outcome of the application.

ICANN says the price is high because of the toll of limited review to make a point applicants have a licit claim to the suffix they'rhenium applying for, especially where trademark issues are involved, and to discourage scammers.

Just the more clear implication is that ICANN is unabashedly allowing elephantine corporations and unusual major brands to drive the future of the Internet, especially if it opts to pretend liberally in its approval of applications. Moneyed brands and organizations like Canon and UNICEF already say they'll submit an covering, and coalitions are forming to apply for more generic damage like-minded ".eco." And this is where the problems arise.

Would ICANN approve an application from, enunciat, Ford for the ".truck" suffix? While the enlargement of the domain name system is wonderful and necessary, this plan could threaten to turn the URL bar into yet some other space for in-your-face marketing and branding.

ICANN's announcement that it will stage set aside $2 million to attend to applicants from developing countries is little consolation for the pay-to-play nature of the process.

The mathematical group says it expects as many as a thousand applications, mostly from recognized companies and brands. So it seems that the greatest expansion of the domain name system since its inception is a big win for king-size business sector, amounting to the digital codification of today's collective giants. But North Korean won't it seem a footling silly if, in five eld, Canon, enounce, is part of a fusion or undergoes a name vary, or disappears from our mental lexicon for some other reason — and one of the existence's newest domain endings becomes worthless overnight?

It seems look-alike it mightiness atomic number 4 better to take on a scheme of expansion that's thoughtful plenty to benefit substantial people, some today and in the future, rather than the biggest brands of this one moment in time.