ICANN decides not to allocate .corp, .home, and .mail gTLDs

The Board of Directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) decided not to delegate the .corp, .home, and .mail generic top-level domains (gTLDs) because of concerns overs name collisions. As explained in the board’s resolution, a ‘name collision occurs when an attempt to resolve a name used in a private name space (e.g., under a non-delegated TLD, or a short, unqualified name) results in a query to the public Domain Name System (DNS)’. Otherwise put, the three strings were identified as being of high risk, as they could be identical to name labels used in private networks, which could then result in unintended and harmful consequences. The applicants are entitled to a full refund of their application fees.