New York’s .NYC domain will open for registration before the end of this year

New York Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Quinn have announced that New York has been approved by ICANN to launch its own domain name extension in late 2013. The extension, of course, is .NYC.

According to the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, New York is the “first city government in the U.S. to be approved to have its own domain.”

If this story sounds familiar to you, it’s because this domain name extension has been in the works for quite some time. The city officially began the process back in 2009. At the time, New York was seeking to team up with a third-party vendor to apply for the .NYC top-level domain. Eventually, Neustar won the bid, the same company which operates .US for the United States Department of Commerce.

If you’re interested in nabbing your own .NYC domain, you’ll have to have some sort of presence in the city — like, for example, a physical address that’s either personal or business-related. When asked if certain entities will be allowed to register for a .NYC domain first, a spokesperson for the city wouldn’t provide details other  than saying that registration times take “a phased approach.”

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