In a historic decision, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) has voted to allow the creation of new website domain suffixes. The change marks the largest shake up of the online world since the introduction of .com in 1985.
From next year, Icann will begin taking applications for Internet address names that can end with almost any word and be in any language. Large corporations and cities expected to be among the first applicants.
“Icann has opened the internet’s addressing system to the limitless possibilities of the human imagination,” said Rod Beckstrom, president and chief executive officer for Icann. No one can predict where this historic decision will take us.”
The current roster of 22 TLD’s (Top Level Domains) as well as about 250 country-level domains, will soon be joined several hundred new Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD’s), which are likely to include .coke, .google and .nike.
It’s a move that it is open to all, but the cost is likely to be prohibitive to all but the largest organisations, as applicants will need to provide the fee of $185,000 (£114,000) along with evidence to support their claim over a particular name.
This is an enormous decision that is likely to have a lasting impact on the internet market. It might be sometime before the full effects are felt by the average internet user, but there is no doubt the change is coming and it’s going to be big!
subscribe
I think that this is a brilliant decision. TLDs are now going to start functioning a little like domain names. I’m sure it will take a little getting used to, but after a while, it will just be totally common place. For everyone else who might not be able to shell out the fees, the prices might get lower, and we can still have access to regular domain names! ;)
Is this for real?? I don’t get the logic behind it.. instead of unifying stuff to make it simpler, they make it even harder to remember and basically they are just causing a big mess? I can’t see how this changes the internet and even if it does, I can’t see why this is a good change.
I agree with KP. This may result in confusion. At the same time they must look for new opportunities to create new domain names.
Thanks for the post guys, this will be really interesting if the price is made a little modest for the smaller companies…it really will add a limitless and dynamic dimension to the web world! Looks a little borderless and confusing for now, but time usually unfolds how beneficial these big changes are for the web world.
Awesome post. I’ve read this news in Yahoo.com last week. I was really surprised, this will have a huge impact to everyone in the Internet world. This will allow us limitless domains. I just don’t know about the price, I think its very expensive for a domain. Thanks for the informative post.
It’s not just a simple purchase of a domain name, this is a purchase of an entire suffix and as such, there will be a limited amount of them available. The difference between buying a domain and a suffix is tantamount to buying a house and an entire city.
Personally, I don’t see the need for this. It adds nothing to the internet other than to create even more domain names and whilst that may be seen as expanding the web, it doesn’t really make it any more accessible to the average everyday user. It’ll certainly be interesting to see how the various suffixes are used though and how Icann monitor and restrict the purchase of them.
Hi David,
I’d have to agree with you – I am struggling to see the point in this. Surely the only outcome of this is going to be more confusion for the user?
I think your city analogy is an apt one. Google and the other mega corporations are essentially turning themselves into the metropolis’ of the internet world and this is probably going to be the new way that the rest of us are going to navigate them.
It’s certainly an intersting development and I’ll be interested to see how they exploit it’s full potential.
Its a brilliant idea, but it’s a shame about the enormous fee that goes with it. Saying that, there aren’t many websites that are big enough to have their own extension…
I think this is a great move. Hopefully it will reduce the silly business of ‘domain hoarding’ which is making it increasingly difficult for businesses to get a relevant domain name.
This is a great idea and a good initiative by Icann. This would help businesses in choosing a more appropriate domain name.
I’m still undecided on this. On the one hand I think removing restrictions from most things is a good, but on the other hand for many people this just becomes a lot more complicated. As domain reseller my initial cause for concern is that this may mean a HUGE number of new registrar integrations, as not every existing registrar may handle all the possible TLDs that people may want. I can also imagine vast sums of money will be spent initially byt eh big corporates trying to to secure their brand name across an almost limitless number of possible TLDs, because if they don’t will they be able to live with other companies having the same domain name as them but with just a different extension. Also how will this work in the already complex world of patents and copyright. If there are limitedless TLDs and businesses simply can’t secure them all, then what rights will they have is someone else registers their brand name using an TLD they have not bought. The more I think about this the more complicated it gets.
In fact i really dont like the decision they made. Things are getting way to complicated in a lot of ways :/
the outcome is going to be big but whether this domain is going to outrank others is still a matter of question. I’m interested to see how it is going to affect those in SEO industry.
This is definitely a very good idea. Now companies will have their own domains and this will do more in terms of sole identity. The price that the companies are to pay is however too much and unless they lower it down then most small businesses will never enjoy this opportunity.
I read about this a while ago, such a good idea shame the cost makes it so prohibitive. Such a great marketing tool shame the smaller guys who need it most wouldn’t able to take advantage of it. When would the cost begin to decrease or is the intention to keep it crazy high indefinitely?
I’m not totally sure if someone is going to see value in having a custom TLD. Dot com is almost a synonym of the Internet, and I guess people are just going to keep on fighting for them. The cost is ridiculous too.
Thanks for the post.
I agree, the idea is great, but the fees are ridiculous for small businesses.
I hope it will go down after couple of years.