New Net suffix bids include .lol,.bank

Some 2,000 proposals have been submitted as part of the largest expansion of the Internet address system since its creation in the 1980s. These suffixes would rival .com and about 300 others now in use. Companies would be able to create separate websites and separate addresses for each of their products and brands,for instance,even as they keep their existing .com name. One day,you might go to comedy.YouTube rather than YouTube.com/comedy.

The organisation behind the expansion,the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers,will announce a full list and other details in London on Wednesday.

Itll take at least a year or two,however,for the first of these new suffixes to win approval and appear in use.

Some of them never will if they are found to violate trademarks or are deemed offensive. Others will be delayed as competing bidders quarrel for easy-to-remember words such as .web. ICANN will hold an auction if the competing bidders fail to reach a compromise.

From a technical standpoint,the names let Internet-connected computers know where to send email and locate websites. But theyve come to mean much more. Amazon.com Inc.,for instance,has built its brand around the domain name.

The suffixes are restricted to the richest companies and groups,who paid 185,000 per proposal. If approved,each suffix would cost at least 25,000 a year to maintain,with a 10-year commitment required. By comparison,a personal address with a common suffix such as .com usually costs less than 10 a year.

ICANN has received at least 350 million in applications fees,which will pay for the organisations costs.

Despite the startup costs,suffixes could potentially generate millions of dollars a year for winning bidders. For instance,a startup company called ICM Registry now receives some 60 a year for every .xxx registered. That startup now wants .sex, .porn and .adult.