UK Creative Ideas Limited (UKCI) signed an agreement with ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, in late March, to launch and be the exclusive operator of the new .ART top-level domain (TLD). Launching Nov. 28, 2016, .ART is a new, undeveloped Internet real estate dedicated to serving the arts and culture communities by providing the infrastructure to enhance and preserve the art industry's online presence. With more name choice, shorter names, exact match for searches, and immediate identification with the arts, the global art world will have a new opportunity to meaningfully connect to their audiences in the digital realm.

"We are very fortunate to have secured .ART for the long-term," states Ulvi Kasimov, Founder of UKCI. "We are at the beginning of an exciting new phase of innovation for art online, and .ART will be an important facilitator for existing and future players within the arts and culture community."

"Our goals are to support existing museums, galleries, artists, auction houses and others in protecting and enhancing their brands, to inspire new organizations to build on .ART real estate, and to make domain names available to younger players to the art scene whose names are no longer available in other TLDs and want to immediately be identified with the art world," states John Matson, CEO of UKCI.

The process of securing .ART began in 2012 when UKCI submitted an application to operate .ART to ICANN, the global nonprofit responsible for regulating and overseeing the Internet's domain name policy. In 2014, ICANN expanded the number of generic top-level domains including major cities such as .nyc and .london, industry-specific domains such as .luxury and .guru; as well as brands like .axa, .bmw, and .google. Now with this new contract in place, the launch of the .ART domain will take place in late 2016.

To request a .ART domain or to learn more about .ART, please visit the website at www.dotart.domains.

About .ART
London-based UK Creative Ideas Limited is responsible for the development and launch of the .ART domain. UKCI founder, Ulvi Kasimov, is a pioneering businessman and in 2014 was recognized by Forbes as one of Russia's leading venture capitalists. Mr. Kasimov serves on the Board of Trustees at the Moscow Multi-Media Art Museum and has sponsored a number of prominent exhibitions and publications, including "Russian Art from Private Collections: Borovikovsky to Kabakov," on view at the ABA Gallery in New York in 2012. John Matson, CEO of UKCI, was formerly an executive at Architelos and partner with Ernst & Young and KPMG, where he advised ICANN on the new gTLD program.  For more information please visit www.dotart.domains.

About ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to help ensure a stable, secure and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet, you have to type an address into your computer - a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN helps coordinate and support these unique identifiers across the world. ICANN was formed in 1998 as a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation and a community with participants from all over the world. ICANN and its community help keep the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It also promotes competition and develops policy for the top-level of the Internet's naming system and facilitates the use of other unique Internet identifiers. For more information please visit: www.icann.org.