.brussels or .poker? New extensions get green light from ICANN

ICANN, the organisation that manages domain names worldwide, gave green light for the new domain extensions. This means that every company, community or city can now claim its own domain extension, such as .bmw, .brussels (.bxl) or .poker.

Today, during the ICANN Meeting in Singapore, ICANN’s Board of Directors decided that applications will be accepted from January 2012 to April 2012. The first evaluation results should be known in November 2012. Applicants must pay 185,000 dollars (129,000 euros) for an evaluation, and it seems that the process can take from 9 to 20 months. According to the ICANN members, this is “one of the greatest developments in years”.

Besides the costs of the application, there are also costs for the creation of a file and for the technical infrastructure and registration software. In Belgium, Combell is negotiating with some parties that are interested in having their own domain extension. Other trademark owners, communities and cities that are also interested can contact Combell any time.