Domain names take centre stage as ICANN meeting hits homestretch

By James Ratemo

Cost of registering new Internet top level domains, trademark protection and cyber security will today dominate a final meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Board, which climaxes in Nairobi. At a public forum on Thursday, country representatives argued that trademark protection and high cost of accrediting new domains would derail the introduction of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), as they urged ICANN board to strengthen policies on the accreditation and registration process to avert wrangles. Generic top-level domains include .com, .net and .biz, and geographical top level domains include .asia and .eu (for European Union) and .au (for African union).

Applicants are seeking proper mechanisms to be used in registering new geographical top level domains, like dot africa and expand gTLDs to include city names such as dot Nairobi (.nairobi), dot Kampala (.kampala) and dot Lagos (.lagos).

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