Rule change to create domian name rush

Businesses will be able to register their brands as domain names after the world’s key online regulator voted overnight in Paris to allow the creation of thousands of new domain names.

Businesses will be able to register their brands as domain names after the world’s key online regulator voted overnight in Paris to allow the creation of thousands of new domain names.

Until now top-level domain names – the .com or .org at the end of a web address – have been restricted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, the non-government body that sets the rules for domain names.

The new rules will allow businesses and other organisations to purchase new top-level domain names in just about any form – for example, .apple or .ebay.

Every country has a country code domain name such as .com.au and co.nz (New Zealand). But the new decision, which reflects the globalisation of the internet, means new names could range from place names to commodities.

Names will reportedly be available for purchase in 2009.

Scripts – for example Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Cyrillic – have also been given the nod.

If there is a dispute over a particular name that cannot be resolved through arbitration, the issue will be resolved by commercial muscle, with the name going to the highest bidder. Prices are expected to range around the $US100,000 mark.

ICANN says the move will allow groups, communities and business to express their identities online.

ICANN said it would begin taking applications for new domains next April and the first names are expected to be in operation by the end of 2009.

Preference will be given to the organisations with brand name IP rights. However that will not prevent cybersquatters registering new web addresses hoping to cash in when people or companies or associations want to lay stake.