ICANN | ICANN Signs Registry Agreeement for .Name

Marina del Rey, California, USA (1 August 2001) The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today announced a key step forward towards a new top-level domain that will make it easier for individuals to register their names as personal domain names on the Internet. ICANN has signed an agreement with Global Name Registry (GNR) for the introduction of a new Internet top-level domain (TLD) designated as .name. Individuals will be able to request domain names of the form jennifer.smith.name after GNR opens the registration process in late August.

"ICANN is pleased to reach another milestone in the introduction of new Internet top-level domains. Individual consumers will benefit from having a top-level domain dedicated to their needs, and permitting registration of personal names for web-site and e-mail identities," stated ICANN President/CEO M. Stuart Lynn.

Registrations will be accepted by any of dozens of ICANN-accredited registrars located worldwide. In September, they will be submitted to the GNR central registry. GNR will conduct a randomized selection process among multiple submissions of the same name. "This is a fair process to select among competing requests," noted Lynn. "Understandably everyone would like their first choice for use by themselves and their families, but this is just not possible in a world where thousands of people may have the same name."

Registered names in .name are expected to become operational throughout the Internet around November 1. GNR is the third of seven registries selected last November by the ICANN Board of Directors for the first introduction of new generic top-level domains since the 1980s.