The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) plans to reopen its application system for top level domain names on May 22nd.
People will then have until May 30th to apply for the names.
The system was closed on April 12th after a glitch in the way it handles attachments which had the potential to reveal users’ personal details was spotted.
“Even as late as May 7, 2012, our packet-level research uncovered a new set of instances (in addition to those previously announced) where another applicant might have viewed a set of system-generated file names,” ICANN stated earlier this week. “It is possible that further analysis will also show that some of the parties that we have notified were not affected, but notice was provided out of an abundance of caution.”
Investigations by ICANN showed that there are no indications that the system was hacked and a large number of users were not affected at all.
Top level domain names will allow companies to register their own suffixes rather than the traditional .co.uk and .com.
As many as 1,000 domain names could be added each year promoting greater competition within the marketplace.