On June 13, 2012, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), published the much-anticipated list of 1,930 newly-applied for generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs – the group of letters after the “dot” in a domain name) for which it had received applications from parties seeking to operate new registries. A full list of the applied-for gTLD strings is available on ICANN’s website.

A cacophony of hoopla and handwringing surrounded ICANN’s announcement last year that it would soon be accepting applications for new gTLDs, and the commentary has returned in full-force following ICANN’s publication of the list. In planning how to address this new Internet landscape, we recommend ignoring the hype and focusing instead on the following three action items.