CYBERSPACE – Largely in response to requests from companies looking to re-brand their online presence with shorter, catchier domain names, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is planning to release single letter domain names sometime in 2006.Single letter names were set aside in 1993, due to concern on the part of internet engineers about the ability of a single database to hold the millions of domain names they anticipated would be registered in the years to come. At the time, the thinking was that the naming convention could be split into 26 databases, each designated by a single letter, which would correspond with the first letter of each given domain name. (Under that structure, for example, “ynot.com” would have become “ynot.y.com”).

Six single letter domain names that had already been registered prior to the decision to shelve such domains in 1993 have been allowed to stand; the six are i.com, q.com, q.net, x.com, x.org and z.com.

Concerns over the load on the address database have since been alleviated, as the existing database has grown to accommodate millions of names with no apparent problems. So, with demand for the single letter domain names rising – and asking prices for the domains being projected in the high 6 and low 7 figure range – ICANN is now willing to entertain the idea of releasing them.

One of the primary questions ICANN faces is how to go about releasing the domains, which all experts agree will fetch a handsome price.

“Obviously this is a valuable commodity,” said ICANN’s vice president for business operations Kurt Pritz. “How would the name be sold?”

Domain names are typically released and sold on a first come, first served basis; a system which clearly favors domain prospectors utilizing scripts to automatically check a domain’s availability, and give them a leg up on getting there first. One method would be to sell the domains to the highest bidder, thereby cutting out a lucrative possibility of being a “middleman” who registers a given domain for the express purpose of reselling it at the highest price they can garner.

“Obviously there’s nothing more exquisite than names that are in extremely rare supply like that,” said Matt Bentley, chief executive of Sedo.com. “They would have a lot of cachet as a brand name. I could see there would be tons of demand.”

Some of the Net’s biggest players are among those lining up to lay claim to single letter domains. Yahoo.com applied for a trademark to “y.com” earlier this year, and Overstock.com is among the companies that asked ICANN to free up the single letters – a change in their business model (they are no longer limited to selling surplus inventory) has brought them to covet “o.com”.

So while it remains to be seen if Overstock really will become “all about the O,” or if we’ll soon be hearing slogans like “Do You Y.com,” where single letter domains are concerned there appears to be two inarguable facts; their arrival is nigh, and their value high.