Interlink

Type:	Privately held
Industry:	Internet
Founded:	1992
Founder(s):	Tadashi Yokoyama
Headquarters:	Tokyo
Country:	Japan
Businesses:	UrbanBrain
Website:	Interlink
Key People
Tadashi Yokoyama, President Yuri Moriguchi, Registrar Liaison Manager

Interlink is a community internet service provider and domain name registrar based in Tokyo, Japan. Interlink became an ICANN accredited registrar in 2006. The company is a member of the ICANN Registrar Constituency.

Background

Tadashi Yokohama founded Interlink in 1992 and serves as president of the company. Its Internet services began in 1995. The company started as a reseller of domain name registration in 2002. At present, it is considered as one of the top Japanese companies providing fixed IP allocation service and domain name registration of over 82 top level domain name extensions.

New gTLDs

On June 24, 2009, during the 35th ICANN Meeting, Interlink announced that it will accept proposals from Internet users for a new generic top level domain; they dubbed the contest, World Domain Cup, with a $10,000 prize and a possible annual revenue sharing of up to $800,000. The contest was Interlink's strategy in anticipation of the new gTLD expansion program being discussed during the meeting.

Interlink partnered with Malaysian-based RegistryASP, a division of Qinetics Solutions Berhad, which provides technology for backend domain name registry services as well as consultancy and international marketing services, to organize the World Domain Cup. The proposed new gTLD popularly chosen by users will be submitted to ICANN for the selection process of new gTLDs on or before May 31, 2011.

On August 3, 2010, the company announced that the winning gTLD on the World Domain Cup was .earth, which received 3,289 votes from users around the world. Including .earth, Interlink applied for four TLDs on behalf of itself:

• .earth
• .moe
• .osaka
• .site

It also assisted four other applications through its subsidiary UrbanBrain.