At a London press conference today, ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, announced that applications have been received for 1,930 new top level domain names (TLDs).
[Top level domains are things like *com, *net, and *org]
It's hard to imagine what life is going to be like with so many more new top-level domain names, which is why it's fairly controversial.
It's a particular stress on trademark owners, who feel as if they are being almost extorted. Imagine that if you have a trademark to protect, like, just to pull one out of the air, IPI for instance, do you now have to register 1,930 different top level domains with your trademark name? If you don't, do you allow your mark to be weakened? If you try to, will you be extorted with high domain registration fees?