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In a direct challenge to the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a new domain-name registry on Monday is announcing sale of an additional 20 top-level domains (TLDs), including .kids, .travel, and .xxx, for $25 per year.

The new TLDs are more logical and easier to remember than the existing TLDs and go beyond the seven new TLDs that ICANN announced late last year, says David Hernand, chief executive officer of New.net.

"We are a market-based solution to the naming system in contrast with a political-based solution, which has moved slowly," Hernand says. "The first seven (TLDs) were released over 10 years ago . . . by great visionary minds who simply did not envision how popular the Internet would become. We hope to move quickly into this space to provide consumers the names they want now."

Critics have accused ICANN of moving too slowly to increase the supply of viable TLDs, and argue that its process for choosing new TLDs is flawed. The organization has also tussled with companies involved in the domain name registration business, such as VeriSign.

Plenty to Choose From

The TLDs .kids, .travel, and .xxx are just the tip of the iceberg. New.net is also selling names ending in .chat, .club, .family, .free, .game, .gmbh, .hola, .inc, .law, .ltd, .med, .mp3, .shop, .soc, .sport, .tech, and .video. New.net is using the same uniform dispute resolution policy that ICANN uses for protecting trademarks and resolving disputes over ownership of names, Hernand says.

The TLDs work within the existing domain name system (DNS) infrastructure, and New.net has partnered with the infrastructure-service company UltraDNS to make access to the new TLDs efficient, Hernand says.

The names became available for purchase at the company's Web site early Monday and are being sold on a first come, first served basis, Hernand says. New.net has reached agreement with EarthLink, Excite@Home, and NetZero to ensure that the 16 million customers of those Internet service providers can reach the new TLDs.

Internet users who are not customers of those ISPs have to download a plug-in to their browser to activate their access to the new TLDs, he says.

ICANN has no comment on the company's announcement, says Brett LaGrande, a spokesperson for the organization.

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