ICANN to expand top level domains

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved a program to expand the Internet address system’s top level domains (TLD) beyond the familiar suffixes such as .com and .net.

Under a new TLD program, companies, entrepreneurs and communities can apply and run their own TLDs that incorporate their company names, trademarks and location names.

As an example, Sony could switch from Sony.com to .Sony, while cities such as Bangkok could have a domain name such .bangkok. The new domain names will also support languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Arabic. …