Changes

At its Seoul conference in 2009, [[ICANN]] approved the [[IDN]] [[ccTLD]] Fast Track process, which allowed [[ccTLD]]s to be written in non-latin characters. Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates are some of the first countries to advance in the application and implementation process.<ref>[http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978296758 Gather.com]</ref>

At its Seoul conference in 2009, [[ICANN]] approved the [[IDN]] [[ccTLD]] Fast Track process, which allowed [[ccTLD]]s to be written in non-latin characters. Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates are some of the first countries to advance in the application and implementation process.<ref>[http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978296758 Gather.com]</ref>

Following a six year development process, [[ICANN]] launched the [[New gTLD Program]] at its Singapore conference in June, 2011. This unlimited expansion program allowed anyone to apply to run nearly any string for the first time in the history of the Internet. <ref>[http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-20jun11-en.htm ICANN Approves Historic Change to Internet's Domain Name System, icann.org]</ref> On June, 13th, 2012 ("Reveal Day"), it was announced that there were 1,930 applications; 84 of these were [[Community gTLD|community applications]], 116 are for [[IDN]]s, and 230 of the applications have one or more applicant and will thus go through [[String Contention|string contention]] processes. This means the first round of the new gTLD program could create a maximum of 1,409 new TLDs.<ref>[http://www.thedomains.com/2012/06/13/nnew-gtlds-by-the-numbers-1930-apps-751-apps-in-conflict-max-number-of-new-gtlds-1409/ New gTLDs by the Numbers, TheDomains.com]</ref>

Following a six year development process, [[ICANN]] launched the [[New gTLD Program]] at its Singapore conference in June, 2011. This unlimited expansion program allowed anyone to apply to run nearly any string for the first time in the history of the Internet.<ref>[http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-20jun11-en.htm ICANN Approves Historic Change to Internet's Domain Name System, icann.org]</ref> On June, 13th, 2012 ("Reveal Day"), it was announced that there were 1,930 applications: 84 of these were [[Community gTLD|community applications]], 116 are for [[IDN]]s, and 230 of the applications have one or more applicant and will thus go through [[String Contention|string contention]] processes. This means the first round of the new gTLD program could create a maximum of 1,409 new TLDs.<ref>[http://www.thedomains.com/2012/06/13/nnew-gtlds-by-the-numbers-1930-apps-751-apps-in-conflict-max-number-of-new-gtlds-1409/ New gTLDs by the Numbers, TheDomains.com]</ref>

==References==

==References==