ICANN announces debut of .biz, .info

By Rachel Konrad
Staff Writer, CNET News

Two new top-level domains meant to appeal to e-businesses and information providers, .biz and .info, will debut Wednesday, according to an announcement Tuesday by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The new global top-level domains, which people will be able to access as soon as September, are the first since .com and others were launched in the 1980s.

The names .biz and .info will be the first to debut of seven new names approved last November by the ICANN board of directors. Agreements still remain to be signed for .name, .pro, .aero, .coop and .museum. The new names were meant to open up virtual space on the increasingly crowded Web, similar to the introduction in recent years of 888 and other prefix alternatives to the popular 800 toll-free phone prefix.

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