Faculty Information |

KAMIMURA Keisuke Faculty of Foreign Languages Department of Japanese Language Professor

■ Title
Policy implications of the expansion of the gTLD name space

■ Outline
This article attempts to provide a quantitative analysis in order to estimate the essentiality of the new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), which were newly introduced to the domain name system of the Internet according to the New gTLD Program of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and to draw policy implications on Internet policy for both national governments and ICANN. The author finds that the effect of the registration fee on the domain name volume is significantly different between the generic and geographic gTLDs, and between the generic and internationalised gTLDs, thus concluding that the geographic and internationalised gTLDs have a higher degree of essentiality and that they cater to different demands of the domain name registrants. Based on the findings, the author draws two policy implications. First, the expansion of the top-level domain name space, which ICANN has implemented over years, is considered to serve some real-world user requirements. Second, considering the higher degree of essentiality, the geographic gTLDs, unlike other new gTLDs, may well fall under regulatory oversight in order to ensure stability and trust among the domain name registrants.
Single Journal of the Infosocionomics Society Infosocionomics Society 2016/07