ICANN announced last night they were authorizing further study into dotless domains.

Google recently announced that they were changing their application for .Search to an open rather than closed registry and they want to operate the registry as a Dotless Domains.

Here is the announcement:

“On 23 February 2012, the SSAC published the SAC 053: SSAC Report on Dotless Domains. A domain name that consists of a single label is referred to as a “dotless domain name”. ”

“Use of dotless names could provide potential innovations to the domain name industry and new gTLD applicants, but their use also raises usability, functionality, security and stability concerns as described in the SSAC report.”

“On 23 June 2012, the ICANN Board directed staff to consult with the relevant communities regarding implementation of the recommendations in SAC 053 and to provide a briefing paper for the Board, detailing the issues and options available to mitigate such issues. ”

“During the period of August to September 2012, a public comment period was held regarding the SAC 053 report.”

The public comment period made clear that dotless domain names are a subject of active discussion in the ICANN community, that no clear conclusion could be drawn, and that a greater effort to identify and explore solutions to the concerns raised before implementing SAC 053 recommendations could be useful”.

“Today, ICANN is announcing that it has commissioned a study on the potential risks related to dotless domain names based on SAC 053 report. ”

“The study report will identify and describe the potential risks that dotless names raise with particular focus on those related to security and stability. The report will also provide options for ICANN as to how to mitigate the various risks and will describe the pros and cons of the options.”

“In both cases ICANN intends to deliver the study teams findings before the ICANN 47th meeting in Durban, South Africa.”