Legal Update: Domain Name Gold Rush on the Horizon

by Michael Park, Senior Associate, Deacons Lawyers, Australia

ICANN recently approved draft proposals that would see the biggest ever expansion of domain name choice.

Under the draft proposals anyone would be allowed to apply for a
generic top level domain (gTLD), resulting in an unlimited number of
gTLDs. Currently, there are a limited number of gTLDs, including .com,
.net and .gov (and .com.au, .net.au and .gov.au in Australia), which
are strictly controlled by ICANN and each country’s Web regulatory
authority (for example, .au Domain Administration for .au domain
names). ICANN has introduced several new gTLDs, such as .biz, .travel
and .asia, but the draft proposals could allow gTLDs such as .ebay and
.yahoo.

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