ICANN, the “god” of internet names has approved two new top level domain names, .jobs and .travel as of April 8, 2005. There is great speculation whether the public really will get behind the use of such names, but one need not think further than airline.travel or cruise.travel to see how easy it might be to snag a great name that is easy to remember. They designated a “registry operator” for each of the domain names. They will then in turn presumably license some registrars (currently under construction … for .travel for example) and you can be off to the races fighting over your .travel (second quarter of 2005 it says … but that is now) or .job domain name.
Icann is considering numerous other top level domain names including: .CAT, .POST, .MOBI, .ASIA, .MAIL, .TEL, and .XXX. We are all for the latter, if all xxx content is then relegated to that top level domain name. Would that not be perfect? Anyway, the first three are further along in discussion.
All sorts of issues are raised by allowing top level domain names to be controlled and registered by private companies such as these. How do you verify the integrity of the process when it is time to get a drop on names. I personally am not that fond of big goverment, but some things, like this, should in my opinion be controlled by a neutral agency. And if you are going to do it, why aren’t you up and running when the time comes and ICANN approves you? Unfortunately that isn’t the way it goes. This is all about money and there are millions to be made and taken as a result of decisions like these.
