New TLD's to Become Available

Updated April 4, 2001

The seven new domain names are slated to become effective later this year. In order to get a jump on the registration, some companies are offering preregristration services to those consumers that want to make sure that they are able to take advantage of the new domain names. The problem, however, is that your preregistration does not guarantee the use of the domain names because ICANN has not completed finalizing the terms and conditions of the new names.

Recently approved for the new year are seven new domain names which are suppose to supplement the .com extension. The new domains and their purposes are listed below:

.biz - for businesses - for example, IBM.biz
.info - any site can use this listing
.name - websites that are personal - for example, thesmithfamily.name
.pro - for professionals - for example, doctorjohn.pro
.museum - for museums - for example, MFAH.museum
.aero - for airlines
.coop - for business cooperatives

How successful the extensions will be is unknown; however, ICANN is hoping that the addition of these seven will lessen the complaints that there are not enough domain names available. It is important to note that as of date, these domain extensions are in addition to the .com and are not required to be used by all that fall into one of the seven categories. However, as other articles relating to domain names have indicated it, is highly possible that someone else might use your name and merely attach one of these seven extensions to it.

Additionally, there is some controversy over whether or not ICANN has the exclusive right to manage these top level domains. Stay tuned for developments.