newyork.newyork - so good they named it twice

Yesterday, at a conference in Paris, the internet domain name regulator ICANN decided in principle to deregulate the system for acquiring website domain names. The aim with this deregulation is to increase flexibility, particularly as to the choice of names available.

This could be great news for people like the New York State Tourism website information board, who will potentially no longer need to go by the website address of iloveny.com, instead they could simply become newyork.newyork (or big.apple or thecity.thatneversleeps maybe). Companies such as Apple and Microsoft may be able to become apple.apple and microsoft.microsoft. Such flexibility may come at a steep cost, with some estimating $100,000 or more per domain name!

Following approval of this recommendation, ICANN may now start the drawn out process of implementing these changes. Things have not changed dramatically yet (ICANN is working towards 2009), so watch this space for more announcements.

Domain names may now also be able to be used in other languages, such as Arabic or Mandarin Chinese.

If these suggestions are fully implemented then my worry is that this will increase cost for business. Businesses may now need to consider whether they register variants on their current trade mark portfolio with all these potential new domain names. There is also, potentially, a greater opening to cybersquatters, which businesses may need to consider.