The
Domain Name System of the
Internet consists of a set of
top-level domains which constitute the
root domain of the hierarchical
name space and database. In the growth of the Internet, it became desirable to expand the set of initially six
generic top-level domains in 1984. As a result new
top-level domain names have been
proposed for implementation by
ICANN. Such proposals included a variety of models ranging from adoption of policies for
unrestricted gTLDs that could be registered by anyone for any purpose, to
chartered gTLDs for specialized uses by specialized organizations. In October 2000, ICANN published a list of proposals for top-level domain strings it had received.