Too lazy to write an actual post on this myself, I will quote relevant pieces of a story which appeared in Suck:

Through a process that was both years too long and miles too stupid, the ICANN board approved – drum roll, please – .biz, .name, .pro, .museum, .info, .aero and .coop. Yes, the thundering demand for a .museum domain has finally been met.

The only possible explanation for making such mediocre additions to a badly over-taxed system – while the well-regarded .web and .xxx domains were ignored – is that ICANN, often regarded as the sycophantic toady of trademark holders, had no intention of diluting the worth of the One True TLD, .com.

There is no technical reason why .web, .xxx, .sucks, .nom or .rectalleakage couldn’t be added tomorrow, save the fact that Disney would then have to hire someone to go register disney.rectalleakage, to keep it out of the hands of pranksters.

Oh, we could never just let anything be a top-level domain. No, because then we would have to decide who had the authority to invent and sell new ones. Well, they couldn’t just be free, could they? This is the Internet after all.