What’s in a domain?

A handful of not very descriptive top-level domains, such as .com, .net, .org, as well as country-specific TLDs (such as Malta’s .com.mt) currently make up the web. Yet this is about to change drastically.

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the international authority which regulates top-level domain names, has approved the expansion of generic TLDs, allowing companies and organisations to create domains for their brands or generic names such as .car, .bike, or .green).

The option won’t come cheap as the application fee alone costs $185,000 and the annual fee will set you back $25,000. Still, I can imagine large corporations spending millions on these very soon. If you’re in the business of making phones, owning the .phone TLD sounds like a great idea.

ICANN has opened the internet’s addressing system to limitless possibilities and no one can predict where this historic decision will take us. On the other hand, I can safely predict a lot of legal disputes over company trademarks and also possible confusion in actually trying to remember and use these new domains.

Applications for new generic TLDs will be accepted from January 12, 2012, to April 12, 2012 and new domains should appear within a year. Anyone with a spare $185,000 interested in registering the .malta TLD?

The technology enthusiast has his own blog at www.itnewsblog.com.