ICANN Approves 1,600 Bizarre New Domain Extensions Like .fart And .zzz

Move over the standard dot com! A massive shift in how we find websites is finally here, promising to make web addresses far sillier than before. The group that keeps the global address book running just dropped its first-ever list of new domain top levels. This section usually carries names like .com or .org at the end of an URL.

Companies, community groups, and even private individuals have submitted requests for rights to 1,600 fresh addresses. If approved, you might soon be clicking on sites ending in .fart, .zzz, or .taylorswift. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers manages this digital ledger from the United States. They have held this role since 1999.

Now anyone can almost use any word they imagine as a top-level domain. Many new options are harmless generic phrases like .tea, .advice, or .brand. Yet others are much stranger. A registry of these applications shows truly bizarre primary strings including .trump, .meow, .bro, .maga, and .god.

The last time Icann opened its registry for new bids was back in 2012. That round gave us domains like .plumbing, .wedding, .pizza, and .babysitting. This current wave is far more expansive and has drawn some much stranger suggestions. Icann states it received 1,615 applications total. Of these, 333 came from brands while only 16 originated from community groups.

Kurtis Lindqvist serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Icann. He noted that these applications show how organizations worldwide seek new ways to build trusted online identities. They also aim to serve their communities and connect with Internet users effectively. While funny, these top-level domains do not come cheap. Prices start at $227,000 just to apply for the rights.

If multiple groups target the same domain, bidding wars can quickly spiral into the millions. A company called Nu Dot Co previously paid $135million to get control of .web. Google spent $25million to secure .app in 2015. Getting rights to a popular top-level domain can be a massive money spinner for corporations.

The organisation responsible for maintaining web addresses has revealed applications for over 1,600 new top-level domains. This list includes 15 specific applications from OpenAI for addresses such as .chatgpt and .codex. The scale of this change is undeniable.

Sam Altman leads OpenAI in a race to secure new digital real estate. Whoever wins approval from ICANN becomes a registry, gaining full control over the string and the right to sell domains using it for a yearly fee. If you build a website with GoDaddy under the .app domain, Google takes a sizeable cut of your payment while ICANN collects its own small transaction fee. These profits can be staggering. Verisign, a global technology firm, generates $1.5 billion every year just by renting out .com domains.

Investors are still willing to spend big on new names this year. A group backed by $36 million from domain investor Yoni Belousov is seeking hundreds of novelty domains. They want strings like .fart, .slop, and .itiswhatitis. Meanwhile, massive tech companies are fighting for anything related to artificial intelligence. Thirteen firms, including OpenAI, compete for the .agent domain. Seven applicants vie for .agi, which stands for artificial general intelligence.

OpenAI is applying for 15 domains of its own. The list includes .openai, .chatgpt, and .codex. Meta wants a grand total of 21 new domains, including .aiglasses and .muse. Anthropic has applications for .anthropic and .claude. It isn't just corporations chasing this mania. Ultra-rich individuals are trying to fence off their digital identities too. TAS Rights Management, LLC owns the rights to Taylor Swift's name, image, likeness, and voice. The company filed an application for .taylorswift.

DTTM TLD, LLC is an affiliate of DTTM Operations, a holding company that manages Donald Trump's trademarks. This entity applied for the domain .trump. ICANN will make a final decision on these new addresses on November 17. However, the system faces sharp criticism from online safety campaigners. They allege the organization does not check the real identities of people behind domains. A 2023 study by the DNS Research Foundation found that domains under ICANN control were much more likely to be a source of malicious activity than those administered by the EU.

The report showed domains issued by ICANN in 2012 accounted for about eight per cent of all website registrations. Yet they made up 27 per cent of all phishing, malware, and spam. In contrast, EU country codes like .fr or .de represented 14 per cent of registrations but just three per cent of malicious activity. The DNS Research Foundation claimed one main reason is that European registries often check the names and contact details supplied by domain owners. The Daily Mail has approached ICANN for comment on these findings.