Internet name game heats up

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This was published 12 years ago

Internet name game heats up

By Glenn Mulcaster

THE Melbourne University spinoff company that managed Australia's entry on to the internet in the 1990s is scouting for business amid a potential new domain name rush.

Melbourne IT, which holds its annual meeting this morning, has fielded more than 150 expressions of interest from clients who want advice on running a domain registry before the proposed release of hundreds more top-level domains later this year.

Rod Beckstrom, president and CEO of ICANN. It will ultimately be the decision of ICANN to approve or deny any custom domain.

Rod Beckstrom, president and CEO of ICANN. It will ultimately be the decision of ICANN to approve or deny any custom domain.Credit: AP

Under the proposal, to be decided by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers on June 20, organisations or businesses could apply to run a registry for domain names ending in any string of characters they nominate.

They could be generic names such as .money, .bet or .news or trade names such as .nab or even place names.

Applicants have to persuade ICANN panels that they are entitled to run the new domain and satisfy any objections.

Japanese electronics companies Canon and Hitachi said they would apply to manage .canon and .hitachi and the American Bankers Association and other financial groups want to run domains ending in .bank.

Applicants would have to stump up a non-refundable $US185,000 ($A174,000) approval fee, and commit to run a registry to manage the names.

Melbourne IT communications manager Tony Smith said the company had an arrangement with VeriSign, the US company that manages the registry for .com and .net websites, to develop and manage these potential new registries.

Melbourne IT acquired VeriSign's digital brand services unit three years ago, and the division has 221 staff, many in California and Sweden.

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