The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers has certified another eight applicants to register .com, .net and .edu domains once the testing phase of the new registration system is complete.
The new participants, named late Tuesday, are ABACUS America Inc., Advanced Systems Consulting Inc., CASDNS Inc., Domain Bank Inc., Marvin Enterprises Inc./Global Knowledge Group, The Name-It Corp., NetNation Communications Inc. and PSI-Japan Inc.
The new companies will be accredited as registrars once the testbed program is complete. America Online Inc., The Internet Council of Registrars, France Telecom/Oleane, Melbourne IT and register.com were tapped in late April to participate in the initial test phase of the competitive shared registry system.
Testing is scheduled to end June 24. Once complete, the system will be open to any registrar that meets ICANN’s accreditation guidelines. So far, another 29 companies have met ICANN’s guidelines.
Registration services are currently handled by Network Solutions Inc. which has operated the system under an exclusive government contract since 1993.