From next year, Internet users may be able to have domain names ending with .tokyo, .sendai or .canon in e-mails and Web sites, according to sources.
At least five local governments and two Japanese companies--Canon Inc. and Hitachi Ltd.--have indicated they plan to register their names for top-level domains under a plan to massively increase the number of available domains on the Internet.
Domains are a set of Internet addresses that come after an "@" mark. The ones installed in the root zone of e-mail and website addresses are called top-level domains. There are only 22 top-level domain categories, including one for countries, such as Japan's .jp. Companies typically use the .com category, while .org is for nonprofit organizations.
In 2008, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a U.S. nonprofit organization that manages domains across the globe, decided to liberalize the usage of top-level domains. It will begin receiving applications for the new domains from Thursday to April and then examine whether it will allow them to be registered ahead of their expected use next year. (Yomiuri)
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