The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, is the company that controls all URLs available and runs the entire World Wide Web.  When you type in popfi.com and it takes you here, that’s because I bought the URL from the guy that bought the URL from a company that’s a registered URL seller via ICANN.  One company controls the entire Internet, and they tell you what names you can and cannot use, and they create the suffixes that create the web, from .com to .net and beyond.  The number of top level domain names is expected to increase massively thanks to new ICANN rules designed to decrease congestion on the Internet.

However, when it comes to the new generic top level domain names (gTLDs), there’s a catch.  First, they cost at least $185,000.  Second, to prevent the kind of web speculation that’s harmed the process of buying .com addresses, companies have to prove to ICANN they have a valid reason to actually buy these URL endings.  So you can’t go out and buy .coke or .google unless you’re a representative of Coke or Google and you’re looking to develop those addresses for your company.

Currently, there are 22 gTLDs available, and 250 country-specific URLs.  ICANN’s new relaxed standards are expected to increase the number of available URLs by the thousands.  When you add in non-English URLs and domain names, that number gets even bigger.

Tags: ICANN, generic top-level domain names, gTLDs, vanity domain names, new web domain suffixes, web domain names, world wide web,  Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, generic domain endings to increase from 22, web names to increase, 5000 for vanity domain names, internet

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