The well-known acronyms on the Internet soon will have many more memorable “Top Name Domain” (TLDs) joining them. More than 50 percent of 250 million domain names in the world are ending with .com, .org, or .net. Soon there will be .book, .music, .shop, .baby, .casino, .pizza and many more.
The cyberspace directory agency known as ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) charges $185,000 for each TLD application. It is a tedious process to go through and in the works for few years now. Applicants are required to demonstrate technical and financial knowledge to operate a domain directory. But at the end, successful applicants can count on millions of dollars that they can earn from issuing Internet addresses.
Some of the new requests created lot of buzz. An application from Australia for a .tennis drew opposition from the national tennis governing body citing that the request failed to obtain approval of all world tennis players. Domain names with multiple applications will have an auction according to ICANN. Expect domain names such as .wedding, .book, .cloud, .eco and .dog to go through this process. Many contenders will be eliminated through background checks or government objections.