ICANN speaks: lucky seven TLDs include .pro and .biz

.web dumped on suffix scrapheap

By Linda Harrison in New York • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 17th November 2000 16:38 GMT

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ICANN has selected the winners and losers of the new top level domain (TLD) battle.

Starting next year, URLs will be able to end in .name for personal sites, .pro for professionals such as doctors or lawyers, or .museum, .aero or .coop for sites run by museums. And any domains can end in .info or .biz.

Those rejected include the .web suffix, which Affilias LLC - a consortium of 19 domain name registrars including Network Solutions - had campaigned for.

It is not known why the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) decided to drop the .web suffix when it happily handed over suffixes like .coop and .pro. But it seems it was due to Network Solutions' involvement in the Affilias group.

Board member Esther Dyson said the involvement of Network Solutions, which once held the monopoly on domain registration, gave her "a queasy feeling". She reportedly urged the board not to award Affilias any domains - although it eventually gained control of the .info suffix.

The net name body also booted out .kids, which was meant to be stuck on sites deemed safe for children. ICANN felt this criteria could not be guaranteed.

The seven suffixes were whittled down from 44 proposals at the start of the week. All the companies paid $50,000 for the privilege of submitting their ideas. ®