During the last meeting of the year ICANN Board of Directors discussed the fate of applications for generic top-level domains .MAIL, .HOME and .CORP. These domains were very popular among the applicants: at the moment 20 applications altogether haven't been withdrawn for the domains. However, research and technical tests conducted by ICANN showed that due to the matching of names on local networks domains generate large amounts of error traffic and their launch might pose a threat to the security and stability of the domain system.
As a result, the launch of .MAIL, .HOME and .CORP was postponed indefinitely. Domain Incite reports that the ICANN Board of Directors is considering to fully refund all expenses incurred by the applicants when they were filing applications for these domains. We remind that it costs $185,000 to apply for a new generic top-level domain. It is expected that the final decision on this issue will be made already in January on the next Board meeting.
