Internet braces for new addresses beyond ‘.com,’ including ‘.bank,’ ‘.eco’ and ‘.Canon.’

Coming soon to the Internet: website addresses that end in “.bank,” ‘’.Vegas” and “.Canon.” The organization that oversees the Internet address system is preparing to open the floodgates to a nearly limitless selection of new website suffixes, including ones in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts. That could usher in the most sweeping transformation of the Domain Name System since its creation in the 1980s. More than 300 suffixes are available today, the bulk of them country-code domains, such as “.uk” for the United Kingdom and “.de” for Germany. Hundreds or even thousands more suffixes could be created, categorized by everything from industry to geography to ethnicity. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will meet June 20 in Singapore to vote on its expansion plan for domain names. If ICANN approves the plan as expected, new domains could start appearing late next year.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration sent ICANN a letter on June 16, sharing Administration concerns about preserving competition in the DNS marketplace.