Website authentication can be achieved by incorporating the '*' character in pre-qualified domain names.

DomainMart, a provider of secondary domain name market products and consulting services, yesterday introduced a proposal for a website authentication mechanism by incorporating the '*' character in domain names.

"There is an urgent need for website authentication to protect the intellectual property of a business, reduce phishing, and provide quality assurance to searchers," says Alex Tajirian, DomainMart CEO.

The URL in the address box indicates the domain name, which identifies the organization owning the site. It also indicates the protocol used. However, the existing domain name system does not provide a mechanism to authenticate the identified organization in the URL.

According to the proposal, authentication to protect intellectual property can be achieved by granting trademark holders and brand name owners the option to register their domain names with an * at the end. Two-word marks would be separated by an *. The proposed character, combined with the newly introduced international domain names (IDNs), would create less friction in situations with multiple trademarks in various countries.

To authenticate quality, Tajirian suggests auctioning pre-selected keyword domain names with the *. Accordingly, the winning bid signals the allocation of the domain name to its best use.