Seven new generic top level domains will be available soon. In addition to those mentioned above, .aero, .coop and .museum will be made available to eligible applicants. There are already seven generic top level domains, but only the best known ones, .com, .net and .org, are publicly available.
A perceived risk of the new domains is that cybersquatters could move quickly to grab, e.g., Microsoft.info. Representatives of the registries that are due to make the names available from this Summer, speaking at a meeting of the International Trademark Association, explained how they will protect against this risk.
The registries overseeing .pro, .name and .info will offer a so-called “sunrise period” of 30-45 days during which trade mark owners can stake their claims. However, the registry overseeing .biz will require any applicant for a name - at any time - to submit evidence of its right to the name. The application will then be judged for authenticity. Only commercial sites will be deemed eligible for .biz names. Where more than one business has a legitimate claim to a .biz name, the name will be assigned to a competing applicant at random.