It was recently reported that The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ (ICANN) system for submitting applications for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) has been down as of late, and now ICANN engineers plan to reopen the application platform on May 22, with the new deadline for submitting applications being May 30.
The application platform, called TLD application system (TAS), was taken down after a glitch was reported which allowed applicants to see each other’s user names and file names. ICANN set April 12th as the last day to submit applications before taking the system offline, after its board of directors approved an increase of the number of gTLDs from the current amount of 22 last June. ICANN, who moderates the address system of the internet, also began accepting non-traditional domain name endings this year, including ‘.sport,’ ‘,food,’ and ‘.bank,’ in hopes to prompt innovation in web commerce. Though, some critics have stated that the new extensions might only confuse consumers and force established online storefronts to spend millions on securing new versions of their brand web addresses.
ICANN had recently stated that the glitch in their system only affected a small number of users, and that there is no evidence that anyone exploited the security breach. ICANN has been in the process of notifying those who were affected by the problem, and should finally have the system running again after tying up loose ends.