This week the Internet’s primary governing body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), has announced that it will for the first time allow the use of any combination of letters and numbers in top level domain names, including non-Latin characters.

Previously limited to just 22 variations, such as .com or .org, plus 250 or so country-level domain names, the decision from ICANN will revolutionise the suffix attached to domain names. It will enable, for example, businesses to use their brand names as internet extensions or create broad generic strings such as .FASHION, .SPORTS or .HOTELS.

The impact of the expansion of top level domain names is potentially dramatic. The opportunity to gain competitive advantage with greater online presence and control over that presence will be an attractive prospect for many businesses. The use of non-Latin characters, it is expected, will continue to open up the Internet to Chinese or Arabic-speaking countries. For those businesses that have missed out on a strong .com name, this is their chance to upgrade the value of their domain names.

From a brand protection perspective, even if not intending to register a personalised top level domain name, brand owners must be alert to the risk that someone else might. Whilst ICANN has procedures to allow companies to recover their trade marks, cybersquatting can be a long and costly issue to resolve.

That said, such online presence comes at a price: with an application fee of $185,000, plus annual fees to ICANN of $25,000, it’s likely that only the largest brands will seek personalised top level domain names. With the ownership of popular domain names going to the highest bidder in an auction process, the actual costs could be even more.

ICANN will be accepting applications for new top level domain names from 12 January 2012 until 12 April 2012. This short window for applications means that businesses must begin planning now should they wish to avail themselves of this opportunity.

If you would like to know more, or to discuss any issues raised by this briefing, please contact Jeremy Hertzog on +44 (0) 20 7440 7264 or by e-mail or Victoria Wilson on +44 (0) 20 7440 7243 or by e-mail.