Buzz
In the past, we were confined to just 22 top-level domains (TLDs), such as .com, .net, .org, and country-specific ones like .co.uk and .us. This shifted a few years ago when ICANN, the body responsible for TLD creation, enabled businesses and organizations to apply for their own custom domains, resulting in the introduction of hundreds of new TLDs like .hotel, .sucks, and more.
To establish a new TLD, ICANN requires businesses or organizations to submit a bid for the domain's creation. This bid can be contested by other businesses, organizations, or even nations. If the applicant secures the bid, they can decide whether to keep the TLD for exclusive use or open it up to the public. If they choose the latter, the TLD is introduced in three stages: sunrise, land rush, and general availability.
The sunrise phase lets trademark holders register their brand names and business identifiers. During the land rush, anyone can register any name, even without a trademark. The general availability phase opens up any unclaimed domain names from the first two stages to the public at large.
10. .xxx, .porn, and .adult
In 2011, ICANN launched the .xxx TLD with the intent of providing a dedicated domain extension for adult websites, making them more identifiable. This sparked a frenzy among non-adult businesses and universities in the US, who rushed to register .xxx domains to prevent them from being linked to adult content.
Brands like Pepsi, Nike, and Target quickly secured Pepsi.xxx, Nike.xxx, and Target.xxx. Google registered Google.xxx, YouTube.xxx, Blogspot.xxx, and Picasa.xxx. Meanwhile, the Vatican didn't act in time, and someone else registered Vatican.xxx as soon as it was available.
US universities faced a similar dilemma, needing to register multiple .xxx domain names. The University of Kansas spent nearly $3,000 on several, including KUgirls.xxx and KUnurses.xxx. Other universities chose to monitor the situation and resort to legal action against adult content producers who registered potentially problematic names.
Beyond .xxx, both .porn and .adult domains stirred up controversies. Major companies and universities, including Harvard, Microsoft, and Taylor Swift, quickly claimed their .porn and .adult domains to prevent others from doing so. Microsoft, for example, registered Microsoft.adult, Microsoft.porn, Office.porn, and Office.adult.
9. .catholic
ICANN is still deliberating the creation of the .catholic TLD. The Vatican is leading the initiative and has already paid the $185,000 fee required to place a bid for its creation. If the Vatican succeeds, it will own the TLD and hold the power to determine who is allowed to register a .catholic domain.
Saudi Arabia is the Vatican's primary opponent in this endeavor, opposing the creation of any TLD with religious terms, regardless of whether they are pro-Islamic. For example, Saudi Arabia has also objected to TLDs like .islam, .halal, and .ummah.
According to the Islamic nation-turned-freedom fighter, the Vatican should not control the .catholic TLD as it would be unjust to the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Church, whose followers also identify as Catholics.
Beyond religious terms, Saudi Arabia also opposes TLDs like .gay, .tattoo, .pub, .bar, .pornography, and .baby. US multinational corporation Johnson & Johnson is among the three contenders for the .baby TLD. While Johnson & Johnson seeks it for its baby-related business, Saudi Arabia fears the other bidders might exploit it for adult content.
8. .gay and .lgbt
As previously mentioned, Saudi Arabia opposes the creation of the .gay TLD, claiming that it would offend cultures and religions that oppose homosexuality. This opposition sparked attention from LGBTQ+ organizations like The Lesbian and Gay Foundation, which emphasized that the domain would be intended to support the gay community, not promote homosexuality.
The .lgbt TLD has also stirred controversy. Unlike .gay, .lgbt has already been established and is managed by domain registrar Afilias. Afilias states that businesses can register a .lgbt domain to demonstrate their support for the LGBT community.
However, the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association warns that .lgbt domains could potentially cause more harm than good, as anti-LGBT groups might pose as supporters of the community to acquire these domains. The association suggests that LGBT individuals should focus solely on the .gay TLD.
7. .patagonia
Patagonia, Inc., a U.S. retailer specializing in outdoor clothing and gear, faced backlash from the governments of Argentina and Chile after it sought to secure the .patagonia TLD. The name Patagonia also refers to a region in both Chile and Argentina. According to ICANN regulations, no one can apply for the name of a geographical area listed on the ISO 3166 list.
As outlined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the ISO 3166 list includes the international codes of every country and state in the world. These codes are used globally to identify nations and states rather than their names, as names can be confusing across different languages.
Patagonia is not on the ISO 3166 list, which meant that Patagonia, Inc. was legally eligible to apply for the .patagonia TLD. However, the company withdrew its bid when it became clear that ICANN was unlikely to approve the controversial domain.
6. .amazon
Amazon, the online retail giant, ran into trouble with several South American nations when it attempted to claim the .amazon TLD. A coalition of South American countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay, argued that the domain should be reserved for the Amazon River rather than for commercial use by a company.
According to the South American countries, awarding the domain to a business would harm the conservation efforts related to the Amazon River, its indigenous communities, environmental protection agencies, and all other involved stakeholders.
Tensions escalated between Amazon, ICANN, and the South American nations, eventually dragging the U.S. into the controversy. Speculation arose that the U.S. refrained from getting involved due to certain South American countries (outside the Amazon basin) granting asylum to Edward Snowden, the whistleblower behind the leaks about the NSA’s domestic surveillance programs. This was thought to undermine the U.S. position on Internet governance.
In reality, the U.S. supports the creation of TLDs for geographical areas not on the ISO 3166 list, provided there is no opposition from any country. Since there was already opposition in this case, the U.S. stance was clear. ICANN ultimately rejected Amazon’s application for the .amazon TLD.
5. .sucks
The .sucks TLD has sparked significant controversy, and it's easy to understand why. Adding .sucks to the name of a well-known brand could allow dissatisfied customers or troublemakers to tarnish the brand's reputation.
Companies typically seek to purchase the domain names of their brands on every new TLD. They attempted to do this with .sucks until Vox Populi Registry Ltd., a Canadian company controlling the TLD, imposed a $2,499 fee. Some registrars working with Vox Populi charged as much as $4,000. This is significantly higher than the usual $250–$300 that registrars charged brand owners before the TLD was open to the general public.
The situation became more controversial when Vox Populi adopted aggressive tactics to force businesses to register their domains at the inflated prices. They threatened to sell the domains to regular customers at just $10 each, but these domains would then redirect to forums where customers could leave comments about the brand. Clearly, any forum like Amazon.sucks would be a platform for harsh criticism.
After facing backlash from furious businesses, ICANN urged the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Canada’s Office of Consumer Affairs to investigate Vox Populi’s actions. In the meantime, major brands like Apple, Google, Taylor Swift, and Oprah did not wait for the investigation's conclusion and discreetly purchased their .sucks domains.
4. .africa
.africa is the TLD for Africa. Proposed in 2011, it sparked intense controversy and a lawsuit between two registries: DotConnectAfrica from Kenya and ZA Central Registry (ZACR) from South Africa. Both applied for control of the TLD in 2012.
ICANN required either registry to secure the backing of 60 percent of African governments and approval from the African Union to claim the domain. Both registries surprisingly claimed to have the African Union’s support. However, it was later revealed that while the African Union initially supported DotConnectAfrica, they eventually switched their endorsement to ZACR.
In 2014, ICANN agreed to award the TLD to ZACR, but DotConnectAfrica wasn’t ready to concede without a battle. The company filed a lawsuit, asking a California court to prevent ICANN from granting the TLD to ZACR. The court ultimately ruled in favor of ICANN, allowing the TLD to be approved for ZACR.
3. .bible
In 2016, ICANN granted the .bible TLD to the American Bible Society (ABS). Now, the society faces accusations of restricting religious freedom with the strict control it exerts over the domain.
The ABS first determines who can own a .bible domain. Even those who are granted approval must follow guidelines that dictate what type of content can be posted. Some of these rules are understandable, such as prohibiting content that disrespects God or the Bible, but there are also controversial restrictions in place.
At one point, it prohibited domain owners from posting content that supported beliefs outside of Christianity or that didn’t align with the teachings of the New Testament. After protests from Jewish scholars, ABS revised the rule to ban posts that conflicted with the ideologies of Jews and Orthodox Christians.
ABS stirred further controversy when it required panelists, who wanted to mediate disputes over .bible domain names, to take an oath affirming their support for ABS’s mission and their belief in the Bible as the Word of God.
2. .su
.su was once the TLD of the Soviet Union, granted to the USSR in 1990, a year before the Soviet Union dissolved. The TLD was expected to disappear along with the Soviet Union, much like .yu disappeared with the breakup of Yugoslavia and .dd vanished with the reunification of Germany. However, .su persisted.
Today, .su has become a haven for hackers and criminals who use sites under the TLD to carry out cybercrimes, likened to daylight robberies. Due to weak regulations, these cybercriminals operate bots, send spam, rob banks, and launch DDoS and ransomware attacks, all while remaining largely unchecked.
Since Russia toughened its policy on .ru domains in 2011, more criminals have resorted to creating .su sites. As a result, nearly half of all Russian criminal websites now use the .su domain. Shutting down the entire .su TLD was considered, but this proved impossible. Despite the rise of cybercriminal activity, the .su TLD still hosts over 120,000 sites, many of which are legitimate.
1. .corp, .home, and .mail
.corp, .home, and .mail are domains we won't see anytime soon. In 2012, 20 businesses paid ICANN $185,000 each to bid for these TLDs. However, ICANN soon discovered that these TLDs are primarily used for intranets and DNS testing.
If these TLDs are ever approved, browsers could accidentally access private networks, creating serious security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by criminals or pranksters. After six years of discussions, ICANN indefinitely halted the creation of these TLDs and refunded the $185,000 to each of the 20 bidding businesses.
