This year, anyone can apply for a killer top-level domain on the internet. I’m talking about the part to the right of the URL dot, like .com or .org. Over a thousand of these already exist: .app for apps, .shop for shopping, .dev for software developers, .nyc for New Yorkers, .porn for porn, .horse for—who knows.
And in 2026, for the first time since 2012, anyone can invent a new .word (even, literally, .word).
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, is the governance body that makes the rules for domain names and IP addresses. These rules are ostensibly the kind of boring technical stuff that most people don’t know about, because the internet “just works.” You type in nike.com, you see the swoosh. But the rules solve hard problems that thousands of humans spend thousands of hours arguing over. When Ukraine asked ICANN in 2022 to shut down all traffic to Russian top-level domains, like .ru, ICANN declined. No censorship is one of the rules: Ensure the stability and security of the internet, but don’t police content.
It’s June, and I’m in Seville, Spain, for ICANN86, to learn about top-level domains and the people who make them. The 86 means it’s ICANN’s 86th IRL meeting since ICANN01 in Singapore, in 1999, just after ICANN was created to transition key internet infrastructure away from US control and toward independent management. The US government is here too—at least four representatives from the Department of Commerce—along with 1,000-plus people from 100-plus countries. And it’s not just bureaucrats. ICANN regulars include big tech companies like Google and Amazon, domain registrars like GoDaddy and Porkbun (domain companies have a penchant for wacky names), UN agencies like the World Intellectual Property Organization, nonprofits, academics, and lots of lawyers and glasses-and-beard computer guys. The crowd has a retro feel. When I hand people my old-fashioned paper-and-ink business card, they hand theirs right back.
ICANN86 is the second of three ICANN meetings this year. The same crowd spent a week in Mumbai in March and will spend another in Bali in October. After on-the-record policy forums and closed-door business meetings each day, the congregation of domain people will party-hop between tapas bars, courtesy of the corporates. One longtime attendee tells me it’s a “traveling circus.” This particular meeting is important because it’s the last face-to-face gathering before the window to apply for new top-level domains, or TLDs, closes on August 12.
