End of New Web Addresses by 2011, Report Says

The end of the Internet is near — and in less than three years, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The reason? More than 85% of the available addresses have already been allocated and the OECD predicts we will have run out completely by early 2011. These aren’t the normal web addresses you type into your browser’s window, and which were recently freed up by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the body responsible for allocating domain names, to allow thousands of new internet domains ending in, for instance, .newyork, .london or .xxx. Beneath those names lie numerical Internet protocol addresses that denote individual devices connected to the internet. These form the foundation for all online communications, from e-mail and web pages to voice chat and streaming video. When... [read full story]