This will open up a whole new world of possibilities, won't it?
A quarter-century after the creation of “.com,” the agency that assigns Internet addresses is loosening its rules and allowing suffixes named after brands, hobbies, political causes and just about anything else.
Under guidelines approved Monday, Apple could register addresses ending in “.ipad,” Citi and Chase could share “.bank” and environmental groups could go after “.eco.” Japan could have “.com” in Japanese.
It's the biggest change to the system of Internet addresses since it was created in 1984. More than 300 suffixes are available today, but only a handful, such as the familiar “.net” and “.com,” are open for general use worldwide. Hundreds of new suffixes could be established by late next year, thousands in years to come.
I can't decide whether I should belong to .jerk, .pompousass, .hopeless fool or .oldfarts.
Seriously, though, isn't this going to create a big mess? If I'm trying to find something online and don't know quite what to search for, I'm comforted by the knowledge that there are just a handful of commonly used suffixes such as .com, .org., .net and .gov. Having thousands would seem to make looking around a lot messier and more complicated.
