Monthly Archives: June 2008

And maybe .whatever as well:

Web regulators were poised Thursday to usher in one of the biggest shake-ups in the Internet’s brief history in a crunch vote on allowing millions of new domain names, from .paris to .Pepsi….

If the change is adopted, the web’s 1.3 billion users would be able from early 2009 to buy an unlimited number of generic addresses based on common words, brands, company names, cities and proper names, according to ICANN.

However, new top level domains wouldn’t necessarily spring up like magic:

In theory, an infinite number of new domain names could be born, which would prove a boon for ICANN because it would receive payment for each one.

But in reality advanced technical skills and deep pockets would be needed to set up a new name.

Industry experts expect the cost — which has yet to be fixed — could reach into the tens of thousands of dollars.

Apparently, an application fee for a domain name could run from about $39,000 to $390,000 (€25,000 to €250,000), so no, Josh’s Anime Blog will not be the lucky person to control .anime.  However, someone may take it up (but damn it, make it available for the public if you do!)

That, by the way, brings up this point: whoever controls those domains can control who can register domain names under it.  For example, ebay wants to create it’s own .ebay domain.  However, I would find it highly unlikely that they would allow just anyone to register a .ebay domain.

Also, if people thought that people trying to register cnn.com before CNN can was bad, how about someone trying to set up a .cnn domain before CNN could grab it?  One would think that there would have to be some approvel process, at least regarding names that are copyrighted.  Of course, the multiple thousands of dollars that is required to set it up is a sizeable barrier to such cybersquatting.

I wonder how long it will take for someone to create a .hack domain (or whether they would even allow it, thinking that it would be a haven for hackers.)