One of the characteristics of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has been its commitment to create a level playing field between big companies and individuals who use the Internet. Its cumbersome decision-making process is open to input from all sides. And its core role — assigning the domain names used by Web sites — has been quite egalitarian: First come, first served. (Trademark issues aside.)

That’s all changing with a radical revision to the way domain names are assigned. Big companies are going to be able to get prime addresses that individuals and small business will not be able to afford.

Icann is about to let anyone start a top-level domain — the part of an Internet address to the right of the period. It mainly says this plan will let entrepreneurs sell specialty addresses to people and companies interested in certain areas, like .shoes or .movies.

But there is another use for the new top-level domains: simpler Web addresses for companies. Expect to see the likes of .amazon, .ibm and .pepsi. This will let them offer slightly faster ways to get to their various subsections, books.amazon or servers.ibm. I’m not so sure how much of a benefit to users that is over books.amazon.com, but every character is a chance for an error or confusion, so a simpler name can’t be anything but better.

What about a company’s home page? This is where things may really get interesting. Right now, Internet conventions require text before and after the period. So you’ll need to go to home.amazon or amazon.amazon to get to the company’s home page. Browsers right now treat text with no periods differently. Sometimes the text is sent to a search engine; some corporate networks use the text to go to internal sites.

But if top-level domains become widely used by popular Web sites, browser makers may well decide to treat a single word entered in the browser bar as a pointer to that domain’s home page. Suddenly, you will be able to get to Amazon and Pepsi typing a single word, no dots needed.

What would stop everybody then from rushing to get their own top-level domain? It might be very fine to own .saul, as I missed out buying saul.com. The answer is money. It costs $185,000 simply to apply for a top-level domain. Then there are the legal bills to shepherd your application through Icann. And the organization requires a fair bit of technology to be certified to run a domain.

All in, it will cost $500,000 to $1 million to set up shop on the Internet after the dot. That means that not only will individuals be shut out of owning top-level domains, but small and mid-sized businesses could also find the price of entry too high.

So here’s where the two-tier Internet is going to hit home with users. Companies that own top-level domains may well stand out from those that don’t.