host/domain name verification, and valid top level domains (fwd)

[Doug Barton]

Folks,

One of the topics at the recent ICANN conference was the issue of
functionality for the new generic top level domains (gTLD's). Seven new
gTLD's were adopted by ICANN in November of 2000, but many users with
domains in those TLD's are still having problems using them.

One of the areas that is particularly relevant to us is the issue of web
forms, and other locations where user data like URL's or e-mail
addresses are verified and stored (especially C/C++ code that allocates
memory for names, etc.). In the past, all domain names ended in 2, 3, or
4 letter labels. However, now the list of valid gTLD's also contains one
with 6. The list of currently valid gTLD's is:

.aero, .biz, .com, .coop, .edu, .gov, .info, .int, .mil, .museum, .name,
.net, .org, and .pro

If you are responsible for code that deals with domain names in any way,
please run some tests to be sure that hostnames from all of these gTLD's
work with your code, and please fix anything that doesn't.

If you have any questions, please shoot them my way. If you are tempted
to reply to all, please trim your cc: list appropriately, and keep me in
there somewhere.

Hope this helps,

Doug


References:
http://www.iana.org/domain-names.htm
http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm