Credi Corp Securities Headlines: Analysis: New Internet rules will spawn battle for “dots”

New names — which could end in anything from .pepsi to .food to .healthy — are expected to start getting approved by the end of 2012. That means hundreds more top level domains are expected to come into existence, creating the possibility for a complex network of possible URLs such as coke.zero or italian.food.
Companies already spend hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars a year to maintain registries for domain names not in use, partly to prevent others from snapping them up for ill intentions such as domain name trafficking, financial fraud or selling counterfeit goods.
Now that the number of possible domains is growing exponentially, so too might the number of registrations in companies’ portfolios, according to industry experts.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will start accepting applications for domain names in January.