Abu Dhabi, Dubai Get New Internet Domains

You can now add .abudhabi and .dubai to your Internet lexicon.

The internet regulator Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) yesterday took the wrapping off new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) that will expand or ‘open up’ the internet beyond the limited number of existing top-level domains, like .com, .org and .net.

Both the of the emirates have submitted their application along with Etisalat (.etisalat). Abu Dhabi and Etisalat will also have Arabic version of the name, Gulfnews said.

“It’s going to make the internet more approachable,” said Icann’s president and chief executive, Rod Beckstrom, told Gulf News in a press conference in London via remote access, who added that ICANN received 1,930 proposals for 1,410 different internet suffixes.

Companies will be able to create separate websites for each of their products and brands and still keep their existing .com name.

The price to apply for a new generic top-level domain (gTLD) was $185,000, with an annual fee of $25,000, although experts estimate each name costs around $1 million to set up. ICANN expects that the first batch of new gTLDs to be operational at the beginning of 2013.