Deadline Looms For New Internet Domain System
If you want to own your own top-level domain you have about 24 hours to submit your application (along with the $180,000 fee) because once the April 12 deadline passes, that is it for the foreseeable future.
Context & Ripple Effects
The April 2012 cutoff is the operational endpoint of a longer expansion effort: a 2008 proposal to broaden web-domain endings was followed by ICANN's 2010 delay in approving the expansion. The policy has moved from debate to a finite application window, with a $180,000 entry fee setting the threshold for participation.
First-order effects
- Prospective top-level-domain applicants must submit by April 12 and pay the $180,000 fee or miss the available application round.
- ICANN shifts from designing the expansion framework to collecting and processing applications submitted under it.
Second-order effects
- The fixed fee and one-time deadline favor applicants able to commit substantial capital before knowing whether their proposed domain will be accepted.
- Organizations considering a domain ending must make their naming and registry decisions on the application timetable rather than through ordinary domain registration.
Third-order effects
- If expansion continues through limited, fee-based rounds, control of new domain endings becomes a periodic allocation process rather than an open-ended extension of the existing naming system.
The trend: Internet naming is moving from a small, established set of domain endings toward a governed marketplace for applicant-proposed top-level domains.