Comment sought on domain names

The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers has invited public comment on procedures for creating domain names, the first expansion for general use since 2000. Names added since then have been limited to specific regions or industries.

Domain names are key for helping computers find websites and route e-mail. There are currently about 250 domain name suffixes, most of them for specific countries, such as ".fr" for France. General-use names include ".com" and ".net."

Some critics of the nonprofit Internet organization have complained that it has been slow to approve new names and that the procedures sometimes have been arbitrary.

Businesses and trademark owners, meanwhile, worry that more names will lead to more "cybersquatting," the practice of grabbing names before companies can in hopes of selling them at a premium.