ICANN Prepares to Reveal Who Wants What Domain Name
ICANN on June 13 will kick off a land rush of sorts when it posts the list of proposed 2,000-plus new top-level domains and the 1,000 or so organizations that want them.
In what’s become known as “Reveal Day,” ICANN, the global organization that holds sway over Internet domain names and addresses, will reach the next milestone in the process that kicked off in 2008 when the group first said it would open up the number of gTLDs (generic top-level domains) beyond the 22 that currently are used, from .com and .net to .org, .gov and .edu. ICANN began accepting applications in January.
Reveal Day will be a significant step for sure, giving the industry a clear idea of what ICANN will be dealing with. But it’s been a contentious process so far. Federal agencies, for example, are concerned that a huge influx of new TLDs will be a boon for spammers and hinder online investigations, and others have complained about the possibilities of cyber-squatters and counterfeiters abusing the process. It doesn’t promise to get any easier after the applications and applicants are published.
