HUNDREDS OF new website domain name suffixes are to be added to the familiar .com and .org addresses in one of the biggest changes to the internet’s naming system in over two decades.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the non-profit group that governs the net’s naming conventions, said creating a range of alternative names to existing top-level domains (TLDs) would provide greater choice and innovation in domain names.
Beginning yesterday, organisations have until April 12th to apply for almost any generic term as a TLD (such as .shop, .music or .sport), as well as their own brand names (such as .canon or .deloitte).
It’s estimated that between 1,000 and 1,500 applications will be submitted for new TLDs by the time applications close on April 12th. Two thirds of these are expected to be from brands seeking to gain a foothold for themselves in cyberspace by owning the name to the right of the dot.
The plan has been years in development and included public consultation periods, but opposition has grown as the launch date approached.
Much of this debate was driven by large brands including Procter Gamble, HP and Kellogg’s, anxious to protect their trademarks and avoid the expense of having to register an entirely new set of names.
Critics also argue the move will drive up the cost of registering new domains and will create confusion among end users.
Stuart Durham, EMEA sales director with the digital brand consultancy Melbourne IT, said the changes would probably not affect the large number of internet users who browse the web through search engines. “The domain name is not necessarily what people are already searching for nowadays,” he said.
Mr Durham said the greatest interest is coming from firms in financial services and in retail and consumer goods.
Melbourne IT is working on more than 100 new TLD applications on behalf of clients, and around a quarter of the applicants it is assisting are Fortune Global 500 companies.
The new plan is attractive to some because it opens many more opportunities than the cramped .com namespace, which has about 135 million registered addresses and counting.
“If you are launching a new product or are late to the online channel, the .com names are already gone. Brand owners struggle to find the space online that they can own. They can try an alternative or buy the original back,” Mr Durham said.
Michele Neylon, chief executive of the Irish domain registrar and web hosting provider Blacknight, said he didn’t expect huge interest in new TLDs from Irish organisations but some had contacted his company to find out more. “A lot of businesses probably aren’t as well informed about the realities as they could be.”
One of the less publicised benefits of ICANN’s plan is that it broadens the web’s scope to non-English speakers, Mr Durham said.
“One of the good things that is coming out of this is that they’re making it easier and more accessible to have internationalised top-level domains. For example, you could have a full URL in Hindi or in Chinese characters so consumers in those local markets can navigate in their native language and character scripts.”
Mr Durham and Mr Neylon said there is no guarantee all of the new generic domains will be successful. Over the past decade, several new domain extensions including .mobi and .travel have been introduced with mixed results.
