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Coming soon to the Internet: .(younameit)
At a meeting in Paris today, the organization that oversees Internet domain names gave preliminary approval to what it says will be “the biggest expansion to the Internet in 40 years.” Meaning, the biggest expansion ever.
Right now there are about 21 “top-level domain names” on the Internet - including the most common we all know about - .com, .net, .org, .gov and so forth.
Under the plan approved by the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - better know as ICANN - Web site operators would be allowed to basically pick whatever they wanted - within reason and with the exception of blatantly offensive ones (where’s George Carlin when we need him?).
That means someday there might be a .austin, .atlanta or .palmbeach domain name, for instance, or perhaps .hotel or .newspaper. Already, according to ICANN, several groups have proposed new top-level domains such as .nyc (for New York City) and .berlin and .paris.
Previously, ICANN declined to create a new .xxx domain for sex-related sites. Today’s ruling would seem to effectively reverse that decision.
The idea still faces some hurdles, but ICANN says it is working toward accepting applications for the new names beginning in the second quarter of next year.
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