'.Apple,' '.auto' among Internet suffixes proposed

By ANICK JESDANUN AP Technology Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - Proposals for Internet addresses ending in ".pizza," ''.space" and ".auto" are among the nearly 2,000 submitted as part of the largest expansion in the online address system.

Apple Inc., Sony Corp. and American Express Co. are among companies that are seeking names with their brands.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers announced the proposals for Internet suffixes, the ".com" part of an Internet address, in London on Wednesday. There were 1,930 proposals for 1,409 different suffixes. The bulk came from North America and Europe.

If approved, the new 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, even as they keep their existing ".com" name. Businesses that joined the Internet late, and found desirable ".com" names taken, would have alternatives.

From a technical standpoint, the names let Internet-connected computers know where to send email and locate websites. But they've come to mean much more. For Amazon.com Inc., for instance, the domain name is the heart of the company, not just an address.

The expansion will allow suffixes that represent hobbies, ethnic groups, corporate brand names and more.

Where the proposals came from in many ways mirrored where the Internet is used most. Nearly half of the proposals - 911 - were from North America and another 675 came from Europe.

Only 17 proposals came from Africa and 24 came from Latin America and the Caribbean - areas where Internet use is relatively low.

One surprise came from the Asia-Pacific region, which had 303 proposals, or 16 percent of the total. It was believed that Asia might get more because the expansion will lift current restrictions on non-English characters and permit suffixes in Chinese, Japanese and Korean. China has the world's largest Internet population, and there was talk of creating the Chinese equivalent of ".com" and other popular suffixes.

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'.Apple,' '.auto' among Internet suffixes proposed