ICANN delegated ten new gTLDs in December 2016

The ten gTLDs include .hair, .fun .phone .mobile .data .hospital and .catholic.

The expansion of generic Top-Level Domains (e.g. .COM, .ORG, .NET) in the Domain Name System is underway. Over 1,300 new names or “strings” could become available in the next few years.

After completing the New gTLD Program, a new gTLD becomes part of the Internet when it is delegated. This means it is introduced into the Internet’s authoritative database, known as the Root Zone.Delegation is occurring on a rolling basis.

In December also ICANN published an update to the gTLD Marketplace Health Index (Beta), which presents statistics and trends related to generic top-level domains (gTLDs).

The index was first published in July 2016. ICANN plans to publish these statistics twice a year to track progress against its goal of supporting the evolution of the domain name marketplace to be robust, stable and trusted. A community advisory panel is working with ICANN to refine the index in preparation for publishing version 1.0.

In the same month ICANN authorized the release of all letter/letter two-character ASCII labels at the second-level for registry operators that implement “Measures for Letter/Letter Two-Character ASCII Labels to Avoid Confusion with Corresponding Country Codes.” The measures – adopted by the ICANN Board during ICANN57 – provide a standardized framework to help Internet users avoid confusion between country codes and corresponding letter/letter two-character domain names. This change is the result of more than two years of work by members of the Internet community and the ICANN organization.

ICANN also published the latest WHOIS Accuracy Reporting System (ARS) report. WHOIS data is information about registered domains. The data is publicly available and includes the name, address, email and phone number of the registrant or registrar. Because WHOIS data connects individuals or organizations with domain names, registrants are required to provide accurate and reliable contact details. The WHOIS ARS project tests syntax and operability accuracy of WHOIS records in generic top-level domains (gTLDs).