City Hall is interested in running a new domain name for London which it says could help promote the capital.

ICANN, the body which grants licenses to run top level domains such as .com and .org, is allowing more organizations to apply to run generic top-level domains (gTLD).

London’s Government has joined a number of other top international cities including New York, Paris, Sydney, Rome and Berlin in expressing an interest in establishing local domains.

Officials at tourism agency London & Partners are working to identify the costs and benefits associated with the running a domain for London ahead of making a formal application.

Kulveer Ranger, Digital Adviser to the Mayor commented, “Ownership of the dot London domain could offer a tremendous opportunity to reinforce London’s position as a global center for digital innovation, generate revenue and bring about new employment opportunities.

“There is great potential for engaging with Londoners and the Mayor is interested to understand better what people think this opportunity would mean to them, as well as the marketing opportunities and the business benefit for the capital as a whole.”

The application process opens on January 12th 2012 and the process for allocating domains is expected to last between 9 and 20 months.

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