2013 Top Stories: First fresh top level domain name contracts signed

A big milestone in the fresh top level domain name program.

It’s been a long at winding road to the introduction of fresh top level domain names on the internet.

It’s taken many more years than some applicants expected. For some firms, that’s meant multiple rounds of staffing up and then trimming employees.

But in July of 2013 the program hit a major milestone: the first fresh TLD registry agreement was signed with ICANN.

dotShabaka Registry inked the contract for شبكة.

The rest of the year has seen forward momentum in the program, with dozens of fresh TLDs being delegated. It’s now possible to visit second level domains for some of these newly delegated domains – albeit just at nic.TLD.

2014 will be the year of the fresh TLD. July of 2013 was a big milestone on the road there.