Companies Will Be Able to Replace “.com” In Their Web Addresses

On Monday, the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved the use of other suffixes besides “.com”, “.org”, “.net” and others at a meeting in Singapore. Big companies are already thinking of changing their web addresses to their brand, but before that, they have to complete a complex and expensive procedure ($ 185,000).

“This is the biggest change on the domains from the creation of the dotcom, 26 years ago,” said Theo Hnarakis, director of Melbourne IT Digital Brand Services, a company that specializes in Internet services, based in California.

The deadline for applications is 90 days from January 12th, 2012, told the press the chief executive of ICANN, Rod Beckstrom. And the first approvals should be announced in late 2012, he said.

Some 120 firms have expressed interest in the program. According to experts, the first to implement these changes will be corporate giants like Apple, Toyota and BMW, which may be registered as “.apple”, “.toyota” and “.bmw.” (MS)

Source: AFP