A couple of weeks ago, Sarah Deutsch got a typical call. The associate general counsel at Verizon spoke to a lawyer friend who informed her that someone was selling the internet address Verizonwirelessstorm.com on eBay for $1m. For Ms Deutsch and her team of five trademark lawyers, it triggered another weary process of trying to track down the seller and reclaim the web name.
"We get reports of thousands of violations each day and it is difficult to prioritise which ones we go after," she says.
Verizon, the US telecommunications operator, owns a portfolio of 10,000 domain names, everything from the obvious verizon.com to misspellings such as verison.com and names such as verizonsucks.com, which they would prefer to keep out the hands of mischief-makers or competitors. This is typical for large companies. Microsoft, for example, owns more than 24,000 domain names.
Ms Deutsch's job is about to get much harder. Next spring the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - the agency that runs the web's day-to-day operations - plans to allow a dramatic expansion of the 268 "top-level" domains, or everything after the dot. Currently these range from the generic - ".com" or ".org" - to the country-specific, such as ".uk". But the US-based body now plans to open the floodgates and let anyone register a new top-level domain - as long as they can pay the $186,000 (£113,000, €132,000) registration fee. Icann estimates that there will be about 500 new ones, ranging from the person or company-specific (".verizon") to the generic (".books").
This opening up of the internet represents one of the biggest shifts yet seen in the underlying structure of the online medium. Its implications are complex and controversial - and extend well beyond the concerns of the commercial enterprises that see the Web as little more than a virtual global shopping mall.
A representative of the Pope, for instance, has written to Icann with concerns over how it would ensure that sensitive religious domains - ".catholic", ".muslim" or even ".god" - would not fall into the wrong hands.
Public interest groups, meanwhile, fear that the changes mark part of a more general rewriting of the rules of the internet that could see free speech lose out to commercial interests.
Such concerns, in turn, have prompted renewed questions about the structure and governance of the internet - an issue that has never been far below the surface in recent years. Icann, a non-profit corporation that is still ultimately at the behest of the US Department of Commerce, has faced challenges before to the way it is organised, most notably from a European attempt to put it under the control of the United Nations.
The coming expansion of the internet's naming system is a central part of Icann's attempt to prove that it truly operates in the interests of a fast-growing global audience. The Roman alphabet, for instance, still dominates the internet naming system, yet the world's biggest internet audience is now in China. Arab nations have also bristled under long delays in Icann's efforts to come up with a system that suits their needs.
If Icann fails to appease these interest groups, the consequences could be severe. Getting it wrong could lead to schisms over the underlying naming system of the internet - in effect, leading to a fragmentation that turns the single global online medium into a series of separate systems.
With an end to the years of work it has taken to create a new naming system now in sight, it is large corporations that have been making the loudest noise.
The costs and risks for any big company that does business over the internet are considerable. Although some domain names can be registered for a few dollars, if they are already owned by someone, it can cost around $2,000 to buy them back. If ownership is disputed in court, the costs are considerably higher.
Yet big advertisers like Verizon cannot afford to ignore the opportunists - so-called cybersquatters - who register variations of its trademark name online. As well as confusing people, fake sites can damage a company's brand in the eyes of their customers. Verizon estimates that at least 9m customers could have been lured away onto fake websites, had it not fought to take control.
As a result, big brand owners are trying to ensure that Icann has procedures that will protect their rights when the onslaught begins - ways to get trademark-infringing sites taken down quickly, for example.
However, these are proving controversial with other parts of the internet community, such as non-commercial groups, who are concerned that these would choke free speech online.
"In Iran the protesters were able to communicate with the outside world because of proxy servers that allowed them to remain anonymous. But there are working groups within Icann working to prevent anonymous proxy servers because they might interfere with trademarks," says Robin Gross of IP Justice, an international civil liberties organisation.
While tensions are high, few dispute that opening up the naming system is a necessary step to creating a more lasting foundation for the internet, and one that will benefit hundreds of millions of users.
Fans of the expansion of domains say that it could make navigation of the internet easier. Looking for plumber.london might, arguably, give a clearer indication of what and where a business is, than many variations of A1plumbers.com.
"We spend a lot of time and money trying to drive people to websites. Anything that makes it easier to find things on the web is a good thing," said Tom Eslinger of Saatchi & Saatchi, the advertising agency.
Others add that the high costs of the new naming system will diminish over time. Nick Wood of Com Laude, a domain name management company which works for multinational clients such as Nestlé and AstraZeneca, says that while fees may be initially high, they will "inevitably" fall.
"When dotcom domains first started to be sold in 1994 they cost $200. Now they can be registered for $6. That will happen for top level domains. When the registration falls to $18,000 or $9,000, many companies will want to apply," he says, adding that he is already aware of 54 companies in the UK and northern Europe alone that are interested in applying for their own domain name.
Yet the last-minute efforts by large corporations to ensure the new naming system protects their interests have brought a wider backlash, exposing the deeper tensions inside Icann.
A recent meeting of Icann in Sydney descended into full-blown conflict over the issue.
"It was a very hostile environment - even for an Icann meeting, which is generally a hostile environment for [intellectual property] owners and representatives. We had people shouting at us, saying we were tyrants and blog postings comparing us to Ahmadi-Nejad," said Kristina Rosette of lawyers Covington & Burling, who were involved in drafting recommendations to Icann on trademark protection when the new domain names are released.
Much now rests on the shoulders of Rod Beckstrom, Icann's new chief executive. A former cyber-security tsar at the US Department for Homeland Security, Mr Beckstrom has been striving for a neutral stance in his first days in office - though his comments have done little to calm the worries of corporations.
"You can look at domainers in many ways. Some see them as cybersquatters, some look at them as entrepreneurs. I think there is a rich and healthy debate to be had," he says, adding, "There is no solution where everyone will get what they want."
Trademark owners worry that such comments show Mr Beckstrom is not listening to their concerns.
"There is definitely potential for a showdown between Icann and trademark owners," says Ms Rosette, who describes Mr Beckstrom's statements as "disconcerting". If Icann does not demonstrate that it genuinely intends to prevent abuse of trademarks, the two sides could end up in court, she warns. "It's no secret that there are trademark owners that would love to sue Icann for infringement."
Public interest groups, on the other side, also warn that a damaging division may lie ahead. "If non-commercial users feel like our voices are not being heard at the meetings, we can't get people to participate in Icann," Ms Gross said.
Ultimately, the danger for Icann - and for internet users around the world - is that these tensions could destroy the delicate consensus on which the global internet directory is founded. If Icann loses the confidence of countries that sign up to its system, that could even lead to rival naming systems emerging, breaking the online world into a series of fragmented networks.
Additional reporting by Abadesi Osunsade and Farah Halime
Tug-of-war over cyber gatekeeper
There have been many calls to make Icann less tied to oversight by the US government.
Founded in 1998, Icann is a not-for-profit organisation which is contracted by the US Department of Commerce to manage the world's internet domain names. Its founding documents contained the idea that over time it would become more globally influenced.
The United Nations, the International Telecoms Union and countries such as China and Brazil have all questioned the influence of the US over Icann and thus the internet. Viviane Reding, the European Union's information society commissioner, has urged the US to transfer accountability of Icann to an international body.
This September, a key contract between Icann and the US government expires and Icann plans to take a small step towards independence. But many are wary of Icann striking out on its own.
People are sceptical of the idea that states such as Libya, North Korea and China should share oversight of Icann, as they want, says Nick Wood of Com Laude, a domain name manager. "The US government is the least horrible option." There is also worry that Icann could be overtaken by commercial interests, such as the registrars that sell internet names.
US congressmen questioned Icann last month over whether it was doing enough to fight cybercrime, whether staff were overpaid, and whether a not-for-profit entity should be running a surplus of $7m (£4m, €5m), as it did last year.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009