London is the first city in the world to have been granted its own gTLD ‘.London’ and will be made available to thousands of businesses in the city starting spring 2014.
The government-funded promotional group, Dot London & Partners, has been given the responsibility of operating the .london domain name. The group announced on Friday that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, (ICANN), had given .london the go-ahead through a deal that was signed on Thursday. London-based Minds + Machines will be providing registry services.
The domain suffix will be made available to London based businesses from spring 2014 and the addresses are expected to go live in summer next year. The group claims that tens of thousands of businesses have already expressed their interest in acquiring a .london address including the likes of Selfridges, Shaftesbury PLC among others.
Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said that the new suffix will enable organizations to associate themselves more closely to the capital and “city’s powerful global brand”.
“This is also an excellent opportunity to expand London’s digital presence, which in turn is set to generate funds to invest back into the city,” he said.
Other cities including New York (.nyc), Paris (.paris) and Berlin (.berlin) have already applied for their domain names and these applications are currently in pending state.
