Coming soon to the Internet: the '.whatever' address

A quarter-century after the creation of ".com," the agency that assigns Internet addresses is loosening its rules and allowing suffixes named after brands, hobbies, political causes and just about anything else.

Under guidelines approved Monday, Apple could register addresses ending in ".ipad," Citi and Chase could share ".bank", and environmental groups could go after ".eco." Japan could have ".com" in Japanese.

It's the biggest change to the system of Internet addresses since it was created in 1984.

More than 300 suffixes are available today, but only a handful, such as the familiar ".net" and ".com," are open for general use worldwide. Hundreds of new suffixes could be established by late next year, thousands in years to come.

"This is the start of a whole new phase for the Internet," said Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the California non-profit in charge of Internet addresses.

The novelty addresses will be costly — US$185,000 to apply and US$25,000 a year to maintain one. A personal address with a common suffix such as ".com" usually costs less than US$10 a year.

ICANN says it costs tens of millions of dollars to write the guidelines for suffixes, review applications and resolve any disputes.

Even with the hefty fees, the organisation says it plans only to break even. It's also setting aside up to US$2 million to subsidise applications from developing countries.

The expansion plan, which runs about 350 pages, took six years to develop.

Before 1998, the United States, which paid for most of the early Internet, was in charge of handing out Internet suffixes. ICANN, which has board members from every inhabited continent, was a way to take the administrative burden off the US government.

Slow progress

ICANN was always supposed to expand the number of available Web suffixes. But the progress was slow because of concerns that new ones could infringe on trademarks, be obscene, or give a platform to hate groups. Competing interests wrestled with ICANN over guidelines.

ICANN has come up with procedures for any party to object to applications for trademark, or other reasons.

Internet addresses, technically known as domain names, tell computers where to find a website or send an email message. Without them, people would have to remember clunky strings of numbers such as "165.1.59.220" instead of "ap.org."

But the addresses have grown to mean much more. Amazon.com has built its brand on one, and bloggers take pride in running sites with their own domain names, uncluttered by the names of hosting services.

The address expansion could create new opportunities for companies to promote their brands and allow all sorts of niche communities to thrive online.

ICANN will start taking applications for new suffixes on January 12.

Approval of individual applications is expected to be quick if there are no challenges for trademark, morality, or other reasons. Proposals that are challenged would have to undergo more thorough reviews, including possible arbitration to decide on the merits of claims.

High-profile entertainment, consumer-goods and financial-services companies are likely to be among the first to apply for the new suffixes to protect their brands.

Canon Inc, the camera and printer company, already plans to apply for ".canon".

Groups have already formed to back ".sport" for sporting sites, and two conservationist groups separately are seeking the right to operate an ".eco" suffix. Trade groups for bankers and financial-services companies are jointly exploring applications for ".bank," ''.insure" and ".invest" for their member companies.

When two or more groups have a legitimate claim to an address, ICANN expects them to work it out on their own. If they can't, the non-profit will auction the suffixes.

- AP