DAILYHOSTNEWS, January 12, 2012- As we come across new advancements around us every day, here is another one for the ‘internet’ that promises to bring a stream of innovations with it.
The worldwide controller of domain name systems of the internet, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) after a long span of researches and detailed reviews, has come up with an opportunity for public and private organisations to acquire new gTLD (Generic Top Level Domains).
The President and CEO of ICANN Rod Beckstrom, in the blog of ICANN’s website, made an announcement to start the registration process for new gTLD from January 12th which will go on till March 29th 2012.
Till now the number of gTLD available to us goes up to 19 which include .com, .in, .info, .net and so on. With the advent of new gTLD the list will have all types of words in many different languages of the world.
The GNSO (Generic Names Supporting Organization) of ICANN is the main policy-making body for generic top-level domains which encourages global participation in the technical management of the Internet.
According to ICANN, this is an effort towards enhancing competition and consumer choice. It is believed that the as a result of increased gTLD, the information seeking process on the internet will experience a change.
The registration process includes completing an applicant profile, a legal review, and submitting the first deposit of US $ 5000. The evaluation fee has been kept US $185,000.
A TLD Application System (also called TAS) has been maintained for the applicants to submit their application. Any established public or private organization from any corner of the world is eligible to apply. In the 50 questions asked, the applicants are given a chance to demonstrate the organization’s operational, technical and financial capability to run a registry and fulfill the responsibilities that come along.
Many come up with the question that how does ICANN plan to resolve if it receives multiple applications for the same thread?
To this, the organization states that if there are two or more applications for the same string, the String Contention procedures would come into effect. The process proposed is well described in the Applicant Guidebook released by the organization.
For those who belong to the developing economies, the ICANN through its Application Support Program is offering limited financial assistance to qualifying applicants. The financial assistance will be given in the form of an evaluation fee reduction and other in-kind or community pro bono services.
For more information about new gTLD visit http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status
