Posted by Liz Colville to FindingDulcinea
CNET’s News Blog explains that “instead of being restricted to sites ending in .com or .org., eBay could have a site that ends in .ebay, or New York City could end its Web site with .nyc,” for example.
In light of the independent organization’s rejection of the suffix ‘.xxx’ last year, CEO Paul Twomey added that the company would still try to regulate suffixes that “seem inappropriate for security or moral reasons.”
On its Web site, ICANN said the decision paves the way for the “biggest expansion to [the] Internet in forty years,” adding that the final version of the plan will be available in early 2009.
Critics are citing confusion and a “gold rush mentality” as probable outcomes of the more lenient naming system. Ron Jackson of Domain Journal remarked that the system will likely “addle and elude the average Internet user.”
ICANN has been the most influential governing body of the Web since 2006, when a meeting with the U.S. government ceded more control to the independent organization and gave it power on an international level.