Icann names new domains

At a meeting in California, domain name governing body Icann approved the new suffixes, in a bid to relieve the pressure on existing top-level domains like dot-com, dot-net and dot-org.

Icann received over 200 different domain proposals from 44 companies, including dot-sex, dot-wap and dot-game.

The process of selecting the winners has been dogged by controversy, including a legal challenge in the US which claimed dot-biz was too close to the country-level domain for Belize, dot-bz. Applicants also objected to the $50,000 cost of applying to run a new registry - a fee Icann will keep even for the unsuccessful proposals.

The successful new domains are:
dot-biz (businesses)
dot-name (individuals)
dot-info (general information)
dot-museum (museums)
dot-aero (aviation)
dot-coop (cooperatives)
dot-pro (professionals)