Two new top-level domains, .jobs and .travel, will soon come to the Internet after the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved the two domains on Friday.
ICANN, the body that oversees technical matters related to the Internet, granted approval to requests from Tralliance to operate the .travel domain and from Employ Media to operate .jobs during the 22nd ICANN International conference, in Mar del Plata, Argentina.
Representatives from Employ Media and Tralliance were not available for comment on Friday, but Employ Media said in its ICANN application that the .jobs domain will be promoted to human resources professionals. Companies that have job openings will be able to operate a .jobs Web sites, such as companyname.jobs, to advertise their job openings.
Tralliance will aim the .travel domain at the travel industry, according to information on its Web site. Registration for .travel domain names will be restricted to applicants authenticated by independent third parties, including industry associations. Registrants will also be limited to using Web site names that they already use or have rights to. Those rules will help establish travel industry brands, according to Tralliance.
ICANN has a pool of 10 applications for other sponsored top-level domains, and the organization is in negotiations with groups wanting to offer .cat, .post and .mobi domains, according to an ICANN press release. In addition, the ICANN board and staff are also discussing five other sponsored top-level domains that have been proposed, including .asia, .tel and .XXX.
In other action, ICANN approved AfriNIC, based in Mauritius, as a regional Internet registry. AfriNIC will oversee allocation of Internet numbering in the Africa region, according to ICANN.