Expect a serious increase in domain name spam

The ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has decided to get rid of the current domain name extension restrictions that are currently in place to make way for additional top level domains. Currently domain name extensions are limited to 21 top level domain extensions and various country domain extensions.

Now everyone can bid for a new domain name extension which will cost a minimum of $100K. In addition, applicants must be
capable of operating (or paying someone to operate) registry services. This makes it likely that only corporations and current registrars will bid for new domain name extensions.

It is most likely that some domain extensions will be registered right away, .blog or .wiki are likely candidates among others. It’s not clear if and how end users will be able to register domains with those new domain extensions yet. Will there be a pricing limit or will the new registrar be able to specify any price that he wants ?

Back to the initial expectation. If everyone can register new domain extensions expect to see a rapid increase in available domain name extensions. This will lead to a massive increase in domain registrations that make use of the new domain extensions. All popular dictionary words and short domains will be taken in no time and many of them will find their way into the search engines.

One thing that has to be considered though is how the search engines will react when new domain name extensions emerge. Not everything is set to stone yet and it will be interesting to see when ICANN announces the process formally.

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Tags: domain extensions, domain names, domains, icann, internet, top level domains
Categories: The Web

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3 Responses to “Expect a serious increase in domain name spam”

1. darkkosmos says:

   July 3, 2008 at 6:33 pm

   >cost a minimum of $100K
   I still fear the stupid domainds :(, I will cry when domains like .xxx .torrent .blog come out
2. Digitarius says:

   July 3, 2008 at 9:07 pm

   Not much to see here. ICANN reserves the right to deny anyone for pretty much any reason they want to come up with- plus the fact that it’s so blightin’ expensive.

   Expect some new TLD spaces with bizarre rules around them. I don’t really foresee a negative impact
3. Spam Blocker Michael says:

   July 19, 2008 at 7:01 pm

   All we need is a domain key attached to each email and the problem is gone.