While much of the business and political world focused on the online protests over anti-piracy and intellectual property bills making their way through Congress, many missed an equally important online development. ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is planning on greatly expanding the generic top-level domains we are familiar with such as “.com,” “.org,” and “.net.” Literally, thousands of new domains could be created such as “.bank,” “.sports” or even specific company domains such as “.coke” or “.amazon.”
ICANN believes such an expansion is important as the Internet becomes global and not just a reflection of the country that started it all, the United States.
Such an expansion, however, also presents many issues, none more important than cybersquatting. What happens if some nefarious force tries to register Nike.sports or even Nike.nike? What if a shady overseas bank tries to register “.bank?” The costs to companies to police and buy these domains could be onerous.
On FORA.tv, ICANN presented a complete discussion of this new initiative. If you are interested in the cybersquatting issue, go to that chapter in the player.
ICANN: The Next Big .thing: New Top-Level Domains from ICANN on FORA.tv