The Internet is becoming more local and search enquiries increasingly concern the Internet user’s local environment. Domains are also a scarce resource and it is scarcely possible to register sensible new addresses within the current domain endings. The logical consequence is thus to extend the Internet’s namespace to take account of these developments.

In future, with .berlin^® domains, companies, private individuals and organisations will be able to register Internet addresses such as zoo.berlin or painter.berlin. The company dotBERLIN^® represents all Berliners in applying for the .berlin top-level domain so as to provide the basis for Berliners and their organisations to register their own domains with the ending .berlin. dotBERLIN is the first initiative worldwide for a city Top-Level-Domain; other metropolises like New York , Paris, and Barcelona followed this trend with an initiative for their respective city Top-Level-Domain (e.g. .nyc for New York City).

The responsible organisation ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) announced that the date of the application window for new top-level domains will be January to April 2012. Until then, we are working on producing the application documentation and we are supporting ICANN with the guideline procedure for new top-level domains. Following the introduction of .berlin, we expect that domains can be registered from the following year on.