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New Net domain names being readied

Eminent domains * The most common domain code is .com. * Among dozens of suggested new domains are .travel, .news and .health. * Any organization can apply to sponsor a new top-level domain, though the final decision is up to ICANN.

New Internet domains will be up for grabs, expanding the addresses people and companies can use, the Internet's oversight body decided Sunday.

At its annual open meeting, ICANN, the organization controlling the domain name system, said it will endorse a limited number of new top-level domains for only the second time since 1985.

The domain is the code that follows the dot in an Internet address, most commonly, .com. In 2000, seven new domains were allowed, including .biz and .info.

ICANN president M. Stuart Lynn declined to speculate on how many new domains would be available, or when. "We're not giving any deadlines yet," he said. "We've got a lot of work to do."

Businesses have been clamoring for ICANN -- the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers -- to open new address possibilities because the existing domains are overcrowded.

ICANN was established by the US Department of Commerce in 1998 to control the Internet's addressing system, which had until then been the responsibility of several unconnected agencies and volunteers.

But as the number of registered domain names grew into the millions, keeping tabs on who owned what became hotly contested.

The next batch will likely be "sponsored domains," restricted to a specific industry or field. Companies say such domains will open new marketing and branding tools. Among dozens of suggested new domains are .travel, .news, and .health.

Any organization can apply to sponsor a new top-level domain, though the final decision is up to ICANN. The organization must prove the new domain represents a well-defined community closely connected to the proposed title. It also must put up a US$50,000 application fee.

The addition will no doubt please the recipients, but it also will mean more work, and probably more disputes. "There will always be controversy," Lynn said. "It's a very different world we're in today, a very noisy world."

Lauri Hirvonen, a senior manager at the Finnish telecommunications company Nokia, complained his company had been lobbying for two years for the introduction of a new top-level domain for the wireless industry.

"Two years is a long time to wait," he said.

At the end of the two-day meeting, ICANN's board also agreed on the biggest reorganization in its brief history.

Under the reform, the 15 members are chosen by a complex arrangement of committees affiliated with ICANN.
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