ICANN have requested public participation for evaluating and approving new domains. MARINA DEL REY, Calif says "ICANN wants public input on its development of a new process for creating, approving, and adding new gTLDs (generic top-level domains like .com, .org etc) to the Internet. This is all about choice. We want the diversity of the world’s people, geography and business to be able to be represented in the domain name system, that is why it’s so important for people to participate in the development of a new gTLD process. We will get input from businesses, governments, and the public at large in the coming months and at the ICANN meeting in Puerto Rico on 25-29 June 2007".

New processes will lay out proposal and approval of gTLDs and should allow for a wider variety to be added in a timely, predictable and efficient way. ICANN expect with the public input, systems for approving new gTLDs will be completed by year-end, and applications for new top-level domains should be accepted early 2008.

"If the new approval process comes on-line as planned, the global Internet could see new top-level domains added and available between June and August 2008,"added Dr Twomey.

ICANN oversaw two previous Internet space extensions: in 2000 seven TLDs including .info and .name were added to the Domain Name system (DNS); and in 2004 six more were approved, including .asia.

"When ICANN was founded in 1998, only a few TLDs, including .com, were generally available to the public for registration of Domain Names. Our mission has been to expand the number of TLDs available to users – and we have made great progress. When the new approval process is complete, Internet users around the globe will have more choice in the TLD market."said Dr Twomey.

There are 120 million registered domain names (unique web addresses) in the world with 80 million gTLDs (opposed to country code top-level domains like .de for Germany or .ca for Canada). .com is has 62 million domains with another 15 gTLDs in existence including .aero to .travel.

Development of the gTLD process began December 2005. ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organisation (GNSO) has guided policy development and will be used for discussion on creating new approval processes.

ICANN is responsible for global coordination of the Internet’s system of unique identifiers such as domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .uk) and addresses used in various Internet protocols helping computers to reach each other over the Internet. Careful management is vital to the Internet’s operation, meaning ICANN’s global stakeholders regularly meet to develop policies ensuring ongoing security and stability. The company is an internationally organised, public benefit non-profit company.