.ASIA TLD approved

ICANN said Wednesday that it had approved the .ASIA top-level domain, which will provide an additional suffix possibility for companies based in the Asia-Pacific region. The new TLD would be controlled by the DotAsia Organization, made up of groups running domain names for other Asian countries. Registration will not begin for another six to nine months, as the contract has not yet been finalized.

Like previous new TLDs, the group will give trademark holders first rights to domain names, and it plans to restrict registrations to companies based within the region. Individuals and groups would also be able to register names as well. Pricing for .asia domain names would likely vary, DotAsia said.