Printer ready

The New Domain Names Are Here (And I Hope They Mean It This Time)

By Jason Levitt

The new domain names are coming. Yes, finally. This month, we'll know what new top-level domain names will be available. Then, around the second quarter of 2001, those domain names should be available for actual registration. For companies that covet their trademarks and branding, it will be important to track these events as they unfold. The new top-level domain names potentially provide much greater visibility for businesses by categorizing their goods or services. For example, if all travel-related businesses have a domain name ending in .travel or all law firms end in .law, it will be far easier to find them in search engines and to categorize them in other ways.

New domain-name registration procedures should make signup a relatively calm affair. Unlike the awkward scrambling, haggling, and infighting that proceeded the boom in .com, .org, and .net registrations, the new registrations have the benefit of hindsight. There will be procedures in place to help stem the stampede of registration requests and methods to resolve disputes over domain names. There will still be disputes, though, and, undoubtedly, some unhappy businesses.

THE NEW NAMES
I first thought that the new domain names would arrive in early 1998 (see "The New Domain Names: Get 'em While They're Hot"). By early 1999, it appeared that they might never show up (see "The New Domain Names are Back"). International copyright and trademark issues, "cybersquatting", and the privatization of the domain-name registration procedures collectively contributed to an administrative chaos that wasn't going to be resolved anytime soon. Now, finally, it seems that the moment is at hand--the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (http://www.icann.org), the nonprofit company handling the administration of the domain-name space, is ready to go.

ICANN expected 20 or so submissions for new domain names. It received 47. From those 47 applications (http://www.icann.org/tlds), it will announce the winning applications later this month. "There was some creative stuff submitted, some good stuff, and there's a lot of second-rate stuff," ICANN CEO Mike Roberts says. Clearly, not all the proposals will be accepted.

For some proposed new domains, the application process will be very restrictive and closely monitored. For example, a consortium of museums submitted a request for the new domain names .mus and .museum to be used only by museums. A company called dotLaw proposes .law for lawyers and legal firms. The International Air Transport Association proposes .travel for travel-related sites. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions wants .union for worker unions. Just as only colleges and universities can currently register .edu domains, these proposals include restrictive guidelines for potential registrations, but the restrictions will be worth it. By keeping certain domains unpolluted, they will greatly enhance company visibility on the Web and in search engines.

A number of competing proposals all want to register .kids to finally create an easy way to categorize kid-safe content. Other competing proposals include .tel, which has ideas ranging from voice over IP to the use of telephone numbers as domain names--e.g., 5553334444.tel. Mobile and wireless companies are well-represented with proposals such as .wap and .mobile for Wireless Application Protocol sites and untethered sites respectively. Finally, there are numerous general proposals ranging from .gay to .sex to .news to .women . Clearly, there are a lot of opportunities here for businesses to register new domain names and reap the benefits of easy categorization of goods or services.

COUNTDOWN TO REGISTRATION
Businesses interested in jumping on these new domain names as soon as possible should closely track the news from ICANN over the next six months. That means paying attention to the ICANN Web site as well as your usual technology news source. Due to the administrative burden on ICANN, and the number of sign-offs that must be had before new registrars can actually deliver new domain names, any attempt at a hard and fast timetable is impossible. However, if things go smoothly, the new domain names will likely be announced on the morning of Thursday, Nov. 16. Also, there may be preliminary staff recommendations from ICANN posted on their Web site as early as Nov. 8.

After the announcement of the proposal winners, ICAAN will go into detailed contract negotiations with the companies whose proposals were accepted. After ICANN has reached registry agreements with each of the companies, the U.S. government has to authorize the addition of any new domains to the root Domain Name Service servers. This whole process could take anywhere from three to nine months, but Mike Roberts suggests that "four to six months" is a reasonable time frame due to the time it will take new registrars to get online.

Some disputes over domain-name registrations are expected, especially with businesses that aggressively protect their trademarks, and ICANN's voluminous dispute-resolution policy (http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp.htm) will be the final word on how those cases are handled.

For the rest of us, the wait is over--long live the wait!

AuthorITies Archive
Send Us Your Feedback
Top of the Page

Lou Bertin: The Observer Lou offers a view of the good, the bad, and the bizarre developments in the technology business	Charles Pelton: Eye On IT Charles explores IT management issues and strategies that business and technology managers face.	Stuart Johnston: Redmond Watch As our eyes and ears in Redmond, Stuart gives his perspective on the latest events at Microsoft.	Rusty Weston: Matter Of Fact Rusty explores the facts and figures behind business technology.

---