EMMA CHARLTON
Sun
PARIS — Internet regulators Thursday voted to allow the creation of thousands of new Web domain names, from .paris to .Pepsi, in one of the biggest shake-ups in Internet history.
The overhaul is expected to radically change the way users navigate the Internet and has implications for businesses and consumers.
“This is a historic resolution,” said Peter Thrush, board chairman of The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). “It’s going to make a big difference to how the Internet looks and works.”
The ICANN board approved the change Thursday at its annual general meeting in Paris.
Currently all web addresses fall under one of some 250 top-level domain names: country or territory domains such as .ca, and generic ones such as .com, .net and .org, .gov, and .edu.
Under the new system, the web’s 1.3 billion users would be able from 2009 to buy an unlimited number of generic addresses based on common words, brands or company names, cities or proper names. In addition domain names in non-Roman alphabets, such as Arabic, Mandarin Chinese or Cyrillic, will be allowed, according to Loic Damilaville, deputy head of the French domain name body, the AFNIC.
The popular online trading site eBay is one of the many companies that wants to have its own domain name.
Broad product groups such as .bank or .car are also likely contenders, while the pornography industry is angling for the creation of a .xxx domain for adult sites.
Cities could benefit too from this liberalization, with the German capital hoping for .berlin or New York for .nyc.
ICANN chief executive Paul Twomey said the details would be worked out over the next three or four months, with the change expected to take effect in the second quarter of 2009.
Some participants at the ICANN meet had voiced concerns about “cybersquatting” — the risk that brand names, for example, could be usurped on the Web.
To avoid chaos, Damilaville said the ICANN also adopted a motion designed to “limit the abusive registration of new domain names.”
In addition, ICANN is looking at ways of blocking certain domain names based on security or moral grounds, he said.
Some cities or regions have been bending the rules already to get the domain they want. The city of Los Angeles has, for example, signed a deal with the Asian state Laos to use its .la domain.