New internet addresses available in summer 2008

ICANN have announced that new internet addresses will begin appearing next summer, the first expansion for general use since 2000.

by Helen Leggatt

icann%20logo.jpg It appears that ICANN will be consulting with the public for its views on the development of a new process for creating, approving and adding new internet addresses.

"If the new approval process comes on-line as planned, the global Internet could see new top-level domains added and available between June and August 2008," said ICANN's president and CEO Dr Paul Twomey.

The last time general-use names were added was back in 2000 when seven were introduced, including .info, .biz and .pro. Since then, only area-specific names have been brought in to use.

ICANN’s Twomey believes the move is all about choice and enabling “the diversity of the world's people, geography and business to be able to be represented in the domain name system.”

Worldwide, there are around 120 million registered domain names. Of these, 80 million are top level domains, such as .com, of which there are 62 million.