The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers wants public input on its development of a new process for creating, approving, and adding new generic Top-Level Domains to the Internet.
"This is all about choice. We want the diversity of the world's people, geography, and business to be able to be represented in the domain name system," said Paul Twomey, president and chief executive officer of ICANN. "That is why it's so important for people to participate in the development of a new gTLD process. We will get input from businesses, governments, and the public at large in the coming months and at the ICANN meeting in Puerto Rico [from June 25-29]."
The new process will lay out how gTLDs are proposed and approved, and should allow for a much wider variety of them to be added in a timely, predictable, and efficient manner. ICANN expects that with the public input, the system for approving new gTLDs should be completed by the end of the year, and applications for new Top-Level Domains could be accepted as early as 2008.
"If the new approval process comes online as planned, the global Internet could see new Top-Level Domains added and available between June and August 2008," Twomey added.
ICANN has overseen two previous extensions of the Internet space: first in 2000 when seven TLDs, including .info and .name, were added to the domain name system; and the second started in 2004 leading to six more being approved, including dot-asia.
"When ICANN was founded in 1998, only a few TLDs, including .com, were generally available to the public for registration of domain names. Our mission has been to expand the number of TLDs available to users—and we have made great progress," Twomey said. "When the new approval process is complete, Internet users around the globe will have more choice in the TLD market."
Currently, there are 120 million registered domain names (unique Web addresses) in the world. Of these, 80 million are gTLDs (as opposed to country-code Top-Level Domains, like dot-de for Germany or dot-ca for Canada). The most common gTLD is "dot-com," with 62 million domains. There are another 15 gTLDs in existence, including dot-aero and dot-travel.
Development of the new gTLD process began in December 2005. ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization has guided the policy development process, and its work will be used as the basis for discussion on creating a new approval process. Materials used in meetings, plus minutes and audio recordings, are available on ICANN's website.
ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers like domain names (like dot-org, dot-museum, and country codes like dot-uk) and the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols that help computers reach each other via the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability. ICANN is an internationally organized, public benefit, nonprofit company.
ICANN also has posted an updated FAQ on the creation of new gTLds. People can email questions and comments and can take part in the online discussion at here.
