The internet is expanding and new dots are coming. Many users are familiar with internet extensions other than dot com. Now Aussie businesses in Melbourne can get a new internet address that ends in .melbourne as the string has been approved by a regulatory board.

"The .melbourne Top-Level Domain [TLD] is one of the first Australian new domains to be approved; ahead of nearly 40 other Australian applications (including .sydney) and an overall pool of approximately 1900 applicants globally," confirms Michael Korjen, ARI Registry Services PR manager.

The application for a new TLD costs $185,000 at the minimum. No individuals are allowed to apply, but institutions, communities and organizations are encouraged. The Victorian Government and City of Melbourne applied for .melbourne in mid-2012.

Having a TLD approved means the entity gets to operate a new dot in the internet address bar. For example, melbourneabc.com or melbourneabc.au can in a year or so be abc.melbourne. Businesses will have to buy new domain names to make this happen.

Google, Amazon and Microsoft submitted several entries out of the nearly 2,000 applications received by ICANN. Google applied for 101 new TLD strings. Amazon applied for 76 new dots, and Microsoft, 11. Users are likely to type kindle.amazon or android.google when trying to directly go to a particular web page in the near future.

ICANN (Internet Committee for Assigned Names and Numbers), the nonprofit organization overseeing the use of Internet domains, is expected to announce another round of more TLD application rounds in the future.

Not only .Sydney and .Melbourne are expected to be rolled out in the next couple of years. .NYC and .Paris, and .London are also coming out in the next years. It is feared the new internet extensions will confuse internet users, but the proponents of the expansion believe it will allow organizations to have a more unique address online.

Big industry names have made sure they apply for a TLD in order to protect their trademark in the ever-expanding, ever-abused internet universe. Internet security questions have been raised in the past couple of years leading to the launch of new TLD applications. But ICANN has maintained the matter has been extensively discussed and security concerns will be properly taken care of.

"Geographical locators have always been important as a part of identifying where an online business is physically located. The success of, and immense value in, the .au brand is testament to this. .melbourne is part of an evolutionary change that will take this identification to another level," Adrian Kinderis, CEO of ARI, said in a statement.

Now, here's a question for Melbourne business owners: Will you sign-up for a .melbourne domain name?

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