ICANN delays web domain expansion plan

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the global body that controls website addresses, has put off plans to enable the creation of hundreds of top-level domain names to compete with .com and .net in the wake of objections from the US that the group had not fully examined the economic implications of the move.

ICANN voted at the close of its meeting in Cartagena, Colombia on Dec 10 to seek more information from an advisory committee with representatives of 100 national governments before implementing the plan to allow anyone to apply for a new top-level domain to add to the existing 20-odd generic web suffixes. The delay by ICANN will give at least a temporary reprieve for owners of valuable brands, who fear that they will have to register many more domain names that echo their trademarks to prevent opportunistic “squatters” from registering them first or spend money on legal claims to oust them after the fact.