ICANN conference in Mexico City
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) held its 34th conference in Mexico City in the beginning of March. More than a thousand people from around 100 countries turned up to the different speeches for a chance to hear how the Internet was going to evolve in the near future.
High level domains was one of the main topics. As you might know, ICANN decided to free the use of high level domains, meaning you might now be able to use whole words instead of just .com, .edu or .org, opening up to a lot more possibilities. To avoid it turning into a gold digger sort of frenzy, ICANN has also announced that they would first give priority to brands that are in the process of expanding on the net. High level domains will then be available to the public.
Opening up high level domain names was a natural process simply because IPv4 addresses are running out. ICANN said that it would give priority to Latin America and Africa for the acquisition of the last addresses, which should expire by 2011.
The conference was also the opportunity for the speakers to remind the public of the threat of cybercrime. Child pornography grew 21% in 2008 and attacks against financial institutions a staggering 51%.
via Netmedia.
