Launch of new Internet extensions Icann

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ICANN, the U.S. body responsible for domain names, launched Thursday, January 12, the program of new Internet extensions. With this measure, businesses or institutions may submit their own suffix in web addresses, for example . “toyota” or . “paris”.

This opening of domain names was approved in June, following a meeting of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). “The new generic domain names in the first level will help achieve this commitment by opening the way for greater choice for consumers, and this, by facilitating competition among service providers to register “, that argues the U.S. organization, in a statement.

Until now, there were twenty names generic top level ( gTLD or Generic Top-Level Domains ), the . com is the most common. ICANN has also recently launched . xxx, intended for pornographic content. Add to that the areas related to the names of countries, such as . fr. In total, there are over 200 million domain names on the Web.

TICKET high input

The new program is primarily intended for extensions brands. Entrance fees are indeed higher: the entry ticket is 185,000 dollars (135,000 euros), but added in particular the management fees of tens of thousands of dollars.

As part of this process, applicants will have only a short time to express their interest, between January 12 and April 12. This will be what is more of a long process, because the time will be approximately one year between the application and commissioning. Despite this, ICANN expects hundreds of applications. There would be no time for a time schedule for a possible new use extensions.

ICANN intends to finally cure the safety of these new areas, with the obligation to provide a service DNSsec (Domain Name System Security Extensions ), secure version of the system that maps IP addresses to computers and the domain names.

CONCERNS OF BRANDS

From a technical point of view, the opening of new generic domain names is finally more complex than buying a single domain name. “This implies a number of important responsibilities, as the operator of new gTLDs leads one of the pieces of the infrastructure visible from the Internet ” , ICANN said.

The launch of the extensions is an important test for Icann, which the initiative has been the subject of controversy. In December, the President of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC or Federal Trade Commission), Jon Leibowitz , had said “very very concerned that the opening of the new [domain name] has the potential to turn the disaster for consumers and businesses ” . “We see a huge cost to consumers and businesses, and not a lot of benefits” , he said.

Twenty-five international institutions, including the International Monetary Fund, have also sent a letter to ICANN to signify their concern about a possible “bad record and misuse” of their names.

It is also difficult to determine if the French players will join the program. In November, only a dozen of French Records have been developed for extensions related sectors, such as . wine, and a . med, for medical sites, or the languages and cultures, including the . bzh and . corsica . The city of Paris and the Burgundy region would also be in the running. The greatest uncertainty concerns the brands, though early in the program of new ICANN extensions.

The full list of new suffixes will be published in May