ICANN gave one of the most important decisions in around last four decades. The Board of ICANN approved the expansion of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs).
Due to this decision by ICANN, companies can have their own internet domain extensions. They have now been granted the power to create broad generic strings such as .CAR, .BANK, .BRAND or .BANK. The decision for TLD expansion was first announced by ICANN in Paris three years ago at the 32nd ICANN Meeting held on 26th June, 2008. This time in Singapore, the board members of ICANN voted 13 for, 1 against and 2 abstain in this 41st international meeting.
Rod Beckstrom, President and Chief Executive Officer of ICANN said “ICANN has opened the Internet’s addressing system to the limitless possibilities of the human imagination. No one can predict where this historic decision will take us,” “Today’s decision will usher in a new Internet age,” said Peter Dengate Thrush, Chairman of ICANN’s Board of Directors. “We have provided a platform for creativity and inspiration, and for the next big dot-thing.”
ICANN made an official announcement stating that it would soon launch a global campaign to make people aware about the dramatic changes in the internet names. It would also try to make people aware about the huge opportunities in front of people due to new gTLDs. ICANN announced that it would accept applications for new gTLDs from 12th January 2012 to 12 April 2012.
In his remarks during the session, Steve Crocker, ICANN Board Member said that “Many people will write positive and negative things, I’m sure. I hope that this is studied in business schools going forward and analyzed in many ways. And we’ll look back and try to understand what the results were compared to what we expected. And I think that’s a very healthy process. But having been involved in a series of key decisions along way from the very beginning, I fully understand that trying to do it exactly right and particularly trying to hold things up to get things exactly right, is exactly the wrong thing to do.”
ICANN anticipates new TLDs could be created anywhere in the range from 300 to 1000 under the new program which would provide an alternative to existing TLDs such as .COM or .NET.
According to a survey done by Melbourne IT Digital Brand Services, around 92% of the organizations who wish to apply for a new TLD (Top Level Domains) expressed their desire for a core brand name or a .BRAND. Companies like Cannon have stated publically that they would apply for .CANNON. 11% of the organizations expressed their desire for more generic term as a TLD such as .BANK or .HOTEL and so on.