ICANN Releases New Web Domain Name Options
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Scott Eells/Bloomberg via Getty Images (LONDON) — By 2013 we could be typing domain names that end in .app, .blog, or .apple into our web browsers.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on Wednesday released the list of companies that have applied for new generic Top Level Domains (or gTLDs).
A gTLD, as ICANN explained on its website, “is an Internet domain name extension such as the familiar .com, .net, or .org.” To date, there have only been 22 gTLDs, including .com, .edu, .gov, etc. But that’s about to change.
Instead of the .com or .net suffixes attached to website addresses, ICANN has taken applications from companies that have applied for new gTLDs. Many companies want their own — Microsoft has applied for .microsoft, Apple for .apple, and Netflix for .netflix. (The entire list can be found here.) Google, which is listed as the Charleston Road Registry, applied for the most gTLDs, including, .lol, .blog, .baby and .boo.
Not all of the domains will be approved. ICANN is currently going over them, and according to its CEO, Rod Beckstrom, as many as a thousand gTLDs could be approved by next year. At an event today in London, Beckstrom said, “The Internet is about to change forever.”
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio