[ccebook.cn]The World in 2010

Business
Change of addresses
Nov 13th 2009
Prepare for a dot.surge
It may seem like an arcane subject, but the question of who should be allowed to
use which names on the internet is about to become a big issue. In 2010 the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the non-profit body
that oversees online addresses, plans to make two changes to its regime for toplevel
domain names—the characters after the final dot in web addresses. Both
initiatives have significant implications for politicians and business folk.
The first change involves expanding the number of generic top-level domains such
as com, biz and org. At present there are only 21 of these, whereas there are 280
specific addresses for countries and regions, such as dot.cn for China and dot.eu for
the European Union. From next spring, if all goes according to plan, ICANN will
accept bids from anyone who wants to create a new generic suffix. Those that are
accepted could be in use by 2011.
In another shift in policy, ICANN will for the first time accept bids for top-level
domains in scripts other than Latin—a long overdue move given that more than half
of the world’s 1.7 billion internet users have a non-Roman script for their written
language. At the moment web users in, say, Russia must switch to Latin characters to type domain names;
under the new approach they will be able to type an entire address in Cyrillic ones. Known as internationalised
domain names, the new addresses will be available in languages such as Chinese and Arabic.
To get hold of a new, top-level domain, successful bidders must pay ICANN a one-off fee of $185,000 and
show they can run a registry that manages the sale of full addresses using the suffix. They will also be subject
to other tests. Ultimately the process could create hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of new domains.
Companies will register their brands—think dot.nike or dot.virgin—while local governments will bid for
addresses that can promote activities in their area. New York City, for instance, is said to be eyeing dot.nyc.
The new domains will be a marketer’s dream. But some corporate lawyers fear they could also create a legal
nightmare. Having spent much time and money securing as many existing web addresses as possible to
protect themselves from cyber-squatters and crooks, companies now face the prospect of many more battles
to protect trademarks online. “All we can do is guarantee that we will establish a fair process” for allocating
the new addresses, explains Rod Beckstrom, ICANN’s boss. This is likely to involve formal auctions of popular
names. Some observers fear that, in spite of ICANN’s efforts to ensure fair play, there will still be a domainname
free-for-all that will result in a plethora of legal battles. Dot.lawyer anybody?
Martin Giles: United States technology correspondent, The Economist
Copyright © 2009 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
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