ICANN Approves Generic Top-Level Domains: New Era of Innovation or A Flood of Spam?

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted overwhelmingly in favour of the proposal at a meeting in Singapore despite fears the shift would cause some confusion and favour large companies.
"This is the biggest change to domain names since the creation of dotcom 26 years ago," said Theo Hnarakis, chief executive of Melbourne IT Digital Brand Services, a California-based company that provides online branding advice.
Under the changes, businesses will no longer be restricted to the list of generic top level domains (gTLDs) that include .com, .net and .org when they apply to register a website address.
ICANN chairman Peter Thrush said at a news conference the new naming system will be a "tremendous opportunity for people to take control of this aspect of their branding and develop it in their own way."
The ICANN board voted 13-1 in favour of the change, which was first proposed in 2005, with two members abstaining.
George Sadowsky, the lone board member who voted against the move, said "I believe that it is not ICANN's job to influence the choice of winners and losers in such competitions, and that is implicitly what we will be doing."
"Many of the biggest brands are planning to apply for their .brand TLD, but many marketing leaders I've talked with look at this as a nuisance and are skeptical about whether Internet users will embrace them," Ernst said in a blog post.
ICANN chief executive Rod Beckstrom said applications for the new web suffixes will open on January 12 next year and close 90 days later.
"The first possible time at which some of the applications could be approved would be late in 2012," Beckstrom told reporters.
ICANN will embark on a global communication campaign to spread awareness of the changes but about 120 parties have already publicly expressed their interest in the programme, he said.
"If you scroll through one of those lists... You'll probably see some major brand owners, some major companies in the world, some major brands, cities, regions and other different types of communities," Beckstrom said.