Q&A: What do the new domains mean for me?

A new era in the way websites are named was ushered in yesterday when the governing body for internet domain names announced a massive liberalisation.

The body that oversees the internet’s structure yesterday approved a “land grab” for new web addresses that will allow people to apply for any top-level domain name — but it will cost them at least $100,000 to do so.

Scripts other than Latin — for example Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Cyrillic — will also be allowed, opening up the internet to many millions in the Middle East and Asia.

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Until now top-level domain names— the .com or .uk at the end of a web address — have been restricted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), the international not-for-profit body set up in 1998 to to oversee the structure of the internet and maintain its stability. Icann regulates the way web addresses are assigned to ensure that computers can communicate with each other.

The free-for-all agreed in Paris yesterday is seen as a great leap forward akin to the privatisation of telecommunications in the Thatcher era. Icann is not being forced to act because of there are not enough name options, but because it wants to open up the system to increase consumer choice.

Most web addresses in Britain have the suffix .uk. The most popular top level domain name in the world is .com and there are about another 20 possibilities such as .org or .net. Every country has a country code domain name such as .de (Germany) and .fr (France). Now the possibilities are endless and the new names could range from place names to commodities.

Paul Twomey, the chief executive of Icann, said: “It’s a massive increase in the real estate of the internet. It will allow groups, communities and businesses to express their identities online.”

Experts are divided on how many new domain names will come into existence. Sceptics argue that some of the more recent additions such as .name introduced in 2000 have failed to take off. But several categories of suffix, such as those relating to cities, are sure to prove popular. It is easy to imagine addresses ending in .london or .paris. City authorities could apply for use of the domain name and then group services and companies under the .london umbrella.

Another top-level domain name likely to attract attention is .web. Experts also predicted that regional names such as .scot for Scotland would be snapped up.

It was not clear last night how many big name companies would want to change their well-established web addresses to take advantage of the new opportunities. Some were asking whether, for instance, Microsoft would want to stop residing at www.microsoft.com.

Dr Twomey said he did not expect there to be thousands of applicants, mostly because of the cost, but added: “We hope there will be a broad range of applications. They key principle is that it is open to all to apply.”

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