ICANN reveals bids for new top-level domains

Big tech has piled in with plenty of asks, but faces a fight as eight applicants want .api and seven seek .agi

ICANN has revealed the applicants for new generic top-level domains (GTLDs).

As The Register reported in August, this is just the second time ICANN has accepted applications for GTLDs, strings like “.com” or “.net”.

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For years, only ICANN could create and operate GTLDs. The governance body changed that policy and in 2012 allowed over 1,200 new GTLDs.

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The organization decided to repeat the process this year and on Wednesday announced it received 1,615 applications. A process is now under way to confirm those applications are viable.

ICANN has made information about all of the applications available in a searchable form here along with a downloadable list that The Register has pored over to bring you news of the following applications.

OpenAI wants 15 GTLDs, among them .chatgpt and .agi – the latter likely the acronym for artificial general intelligence. Six other entities also want that string.

The AI upstart also wants .mcp, which probably refers to the open source Model Context Protocol. Google bid for this GTLD, too, as have three other entities.

The Big G, through its subsidiary Charleston Road Registry, is in an eight-way tussle to score .api. It has applied for over 30 new names, most pertaining to its products.

Anthropic wants only its own name and .claude. Microsoft is another that hopes for just a pair of names: .copilot and .msft.

Meta will have to fight another contender to control .superintelligence, but is the only entity trying to claim .wearables.

13 entities hope to claim .agent, with Meta and Google among the contenders.

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Salesforce wants its own name, plus .force, .slack, and .tableau.

An outfit named Fomalhaut Exploration wants .intel. That could be Chipzilla acting through a third party, or the beginning of a legal tussle.

Three contenders want to be the home of .drone, while nine are fighting over .brand. Ten applicants want to build their own .hub, while two hope to take GTLDs to .mars.

Seven operators hope to run .official, the kind of domain that brands buy defensively so they end up with [companyname].official before someone cynical nabs the name.

North America was home to most applicants – 864 – followed by 506 Europeans, 218 from Asia Pacific, 16 from Africa, and just 11 from Latin America and the Caribbean.

When multiple parties apply for the same GTLD, ICANN first applies a “community priority evaluation” process that tries to find the most appropriate home for a string. If that fails, rights to the GTLD go to auction.

All applications must be decided by November 17, aka String Confirmation Day, after which successful applicants can start the work to establish a registry for their new GTLDs. Readers will likely be able to register domains using the new GTLDs next year. ®