ICANN, the organisation in charge of the global domain name system, tonight opens the 3 month process for allowing applications for new top level domains. Top level domains are the ‘right of the dot’ extension on domain names – like .com, .uk, .xxx.

From midnight 12 Jan 2012 until April 12th 2012, anyone who can stump up $185,000 (£119,500) as a processing fee can apply for more or less any domain name extention they like*.

*ICANN has a multi-stakeholder consensus-based decision making process so there are plently of caveats, special cases and  discounts for worthy causes.

You can find out more about the process at the newgTLD Icann website.

2020Media offers registration services for domain names worldwide and we welcome the changes ICANN has made. Although it’s likely many of the applications will be by big brands like Facebook and Microsoft for domains that won’t be available for the public, there will still be more choice in the coming months and years.