ICANN Approves gTld Naming System Changes

According to the BBC, ICANN today approved the proposed changes to the gTld Naming System.

The new rules remove previous restrictions that kept companies, individuals and countries to a limited set of domain extensions (.com, .edu, .net, .uk etc). Under the new rules, domain extensions can up to 64 characters if you’ve got the $50,000 to $500,000 for registration. Says the BBC:

Under the new plans, domain names can be based on any string of letters. Individuals will be able to register a domain based on their own name, for example, as long as they can show a “business plan and technical capacity”.

Business domain registrations will be based on intellectual property claims, which should be an interesting process. ICANN has apparently had this plan in the works for over six years. ICANN also approved today the use of non-latin characters in domain addresses.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 10:26 pm and is filed under Domain News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “ICANN Approves gTld Naming System Changes”

David J Castello
June 26th, 2008 at 10:42 pm

The term gTLD isn’t going to work with these. I suggest they are vTLDs (Vanity TLDs).
Johnny
June 27th, 2008 at 5:33 am

Here comes a slew of Vanity Domain Names !
Hackers Hijack IANA and ICANN Web Sites | Domain Name News | Domain News | Expired Domains
June 27th, 2008 at 11:23 pm

[…] yesterday’s approval of a controversial move to loosen restrictions on new domain extensions (gTlds), domaining control […]
JK Swopes
June 30th, 2008 at 9:49 pm

I’m very new to domaining, so I am trying to learn it from the master! If I understand this right, people can now have whatever.iwant as a web address?

or, people can create a tld and allow others to purchase domains with this extension?
admin
June 30th, 2008 at 9:55 pm

Well, basically yea, except, you will need to pay a fee of somewhere between $50,000 and $500,000 for the pleasure, and ICANN will still have to approve your tld.

But after you do all that, yes, you will be able to own something like http://www.something.jkswopes
Political consequences of ICANN’s gTLD changes | Domain Name News | Domain News | Expired Domains
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:39 pm

[…] that the dust is settling following ICANN’s blockbusting approval of a proposal to loosen restrictions on domain extensions under the gTld naming system, I think we […]
Wall Street Journal Covers Domain Naming Rights | Domain Name News | Domain News | Expired Domains
October 14th, 2008 at 6:46 am

[…] Ben Worthen of the Wall Street Journal has written an article discussing ICANN’s changes to the gTld Naming System. […]

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