ICANN to Adopt New TLD Process

October 31st, 2003
By Washington Post

Existing Internet domains like "dot-com" and "dot-net" could get some new company as early as 2005 under a policy adopted by the the group that oversees the Internet's addressing system.

The board of directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted today in favor of creating a streamlined domain-name creation process, the major policy decision to emerge from the group's week-long meeting in Tunisia.

"The expectation is that we would be moving to some regime that is a more open process -- a more continuous process," said ICANN President Paul Twomey in a conference call with reporters. "This will not be a question of people being told you can't have a [domain]."

When ICANN last approved new domains in November 2000, critics accused the organization of making arbitrary decisions and playing favorites among the pool of nearly 50 applicants. ICANN approved seven new domains -- dot-aero, dot-biz, dot-coop, dot-info, dot-museum, dot-name and dot-pro -- while rejecting applications for dozens of others, including dot-web and dot-xxx.

Many of the companies that applied to operate the rejected domains complained that they had little opportunity to pitch their ideas to ICANN, despite paying $50,000 to apply.

The new process will be a "contrast to the idea of a beauty contest," Twomey said, creating a more objective set of criteria for creating new domains.

Michael Froomkin, a University of Miami law professor and a critic of ICANN's approach to creating Internet domains, said it's too soon to judge whether the new policy will benefit Internet users.

"The devil's always in the details. It could be great and it could not be great," Froomkin said. "I feel a little bit like Charlie brown with Lucy. Every time they tell me something good is coming they pull away the football."

Froomkin applauded Twomey's call for a less subjective way of choosing new domains. "It clearly should be mechanized," he said. "The process should be something anyone can look at and say 'do I qualify?'"

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) supports the ICANN idea, despite its history of opposing many new domains.

Intellectual property owners once feared that the creation of new domains would make it difficult to protect trademarks and copyrights online, requiring companies to patrol dozens of new Internet neighborhoods looking for infringing Web addresses. So-called cybersquatters often use new domains to register the names of celebrities and well known companies like Madonna or Microsoft, then would try to sell them at exorbitant prices.

ICANN's creation of a dispute resolution process and policies that allow trademark owners to pre-register in new Internet domains have helped to allay those concerns.

WIPO will continue to urge ICANN to add new domains at a relatively slow rate, according to Francis Gurry, the organization's assistant director general.

"It is important that the introduction be controlled," Gurry said. "I wouldn't go from seven to 500 overnight."

Twomey said that ICANN would continue trying to address trademark and copyright concerns.

ICANN also will develop a way for people to create Internet domains that use non-English characters. Under the current system, even Internet domains written in Chinese or Arabic must end with English extensions like dot-com or dot-info.