On June 20, 2011, ICANN approved the long-awaited expansion of naming of Internet top level domains, allowing to apply for the introduction of almost arbitrary TLDs. In addition to traditional domain extensions such as “.de” or “.com”, city and industry domains such as “.köln” or “.shop” became possible.

This decision against all odds was a small revolution. Facing almost 2,000 applications for the operation of a new domain extension, Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of ICANN's Board of Directors, even spoke of a “new Internet age”.

The big advantage over the classic generic top level domains is first and foremost that not all popular names have already been assigned yet. As a result, the chance of getting your desired domain name is much higher. In addition, the variety of choices allows for an even more individual construction of the domain names – including the domain extension.