NEW YORK (Reuters)- Internet regulators on Thursday voted to relax rules on domain nameslike .com or .edu, which could pave the way for companies orindividuals to create an array of new addresses for the Web.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann,also approved measures that will allow top-level domain names to bewritten in scripts such as Arabic or Cyrillic.
Top-level domain names, or TLDs, refer to Internet name suffixes,such as the ubiquitous .com, .net and .org, among others. Currently,there are more than 200 TLDs, which also include the two-charactercountry codes used by websites, such as Britain’s .uk.
"This is a historic resolution," said Peter Dengate Thrush, chairmanof Icann’s board. "It’s going to make a big difference to how theInternet looks and works."
Icann officials said some technical issues for the new system muststill be worked out, but it could be reviewing the first applicationsfor new TLDs as early as next spring. The application fee is expectedto cost more than $100,000.
Under the new system, individuals, companies or groups could applyto have any string of letters established as a domain name. It could bea vanity name, for example — .smith — or a category name like .sportsor .perfume. A company could also change its domain to reflect itsbrand, so Apple.com could become Apple.mac, for instance.
Straightforward applications will be approved quickly, officialssaid. A review process would be undertaken for controversial strings,such as those that infringe on existing trademarks, or appear to be toosimilar to existing TLDs, or raise moral objections.
Icann adopted the new rules after a meeting in Paris.
(Reporting by Paul Thomasch, editing by Maureen Bavdek)
? Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved
