ICANN: $185,000 for your own Top Level Domain Extension

With new rule changes in the management of top level domain name extensions, look to see a number of new web addresses become available over the next few years. ICANN has released its draft application guidebook for those who may be considering registering their ideas as an alternative to dot com. The summary is basically: $185,000 in application fees are required, you must be an organization in good standing with an established history and infrastructure in domain name licensing / registration, and you must pass a review period which will include the filing of objections from other claimants to the extension name under consideration. Organizations that claim to represent a particular community must establish proof that they actually do represent the group officially. The PDF file with all the information on the process can be downloaded at:

http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/draft-rfp-24oct08-en.pdf

The newest TLD to be launched under these guidelines is the .tel extension, a sponsored TLD registered with the Telnic Corporation. Telnic is planning a global telephone book type of directory with contact information linked to DNS settings. According to Wikipedia, “.tel is about publishing contact data: phone numbers, SIP addresses and so on directly in the DNS, not on html-based websites.”

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