ICANN: Progress in Process for Introducing New Sponsored Top-Level Domains

19 March 2004

ICANN today announced that, in response to a request for proposals, it has received ten applications for new sponsored top-level domains (sTLD's).

TLD Proposed Sponsor Web Address
.asia DotAsia Organisation Limited www.dotAsia.org
.cat Fundació puntCAT www.puntcat.org
.jobs The Society for HR Management www.shrm.org
.mail The Anti-Spam Community Registry www.spamhaus.org
.mobi Mobi JV (working name) www.mtldinfo.com
.post Universal Postal Union (UPU) www.upu.int
.tel pulver.com www.pulver.com
.tel Telname Limited www.telname.com
.travel The Travel Partnership Corporation www.ttpc.org
.xxx Int'l Foundation for Online Responsibility www.iffor.org

This sTLD RFP is the first stage of ICANN's strategic initiative to move to a streamlined, fully-globalized process for the introduction of new generic TLDs.

This unique phase is part of the continuing expansion of the domain name system.

The applications were submitted in response to a request for proposals process that was initiated by ICANN on 15 December 2003. The last day to submit applications was 16 March 2004. A public comment period will open 1- 30 April 2004.

The applications will be reviewed by an independent evaluation panel beginning in May 2004. The criteria for evaluation were posted with the RFP. All applicants that are found to satisfy the posted criteria will be eligible to enter into technical and commercial negotiations with ICANN for agreements for the allocation and sponsorship of the requested TLDs.

The seven original gTLDs (.com, .edu, .gov, .int, .mil, .net, and .org) were created in the 1980s. In 2000, ICANN conducted a proof of concept testbed selection of seven new TLDs. Four of those new TLDs (.biz, .info, .name, and .pro) are unsponsored. The other three TLDs from that round (.aero, .coop, and .museum) are sponsored.

An unsponsored TLD operates under policies established by the global Internet community directly through the ICANN process, while a sponsored TLD is a specialized TLD that has a sponsor representing the narrower community that is most affected by the TLD. The sponsor thus carries out delegated policy-formulation responsibilities over many matters concerning the TLD.

SpamHaus, the company proposing the .mail domain name extension, has a FAQ on the topic:

http://www.spamhaus.org/tld/faq.lasso

To say that I'm interested in the outcome of this is an understatement. SpamHaus has a reputation for being heavy-handed, to say the least, in dealing with spammers, however I've never found them to be too terribly unfair. Since SPAM now accounts for over 50% of all email sent over the internet, I feel that we're in a desperate time which calls for desperate measures.

Imagine for a moment if half of the snail mail you recieve is junk mail, advertisements for pornography shops, or scams. The US Postal system would be crippled, a fact that is reflected in the webhosting industry today by hard-pressed mailservers. I know, I maintain over 2 dozen mailservers, and spammers are the proverbial thorn in my side.

why don't they come up with a TLD that more than 10 organizations are going to use? seems like a waste of time to use .cat, .mail, .mobi, .post, .tel

However I can see a use for .asia, .jobs, .travel and of course .xxx