TLD Graveyard

if anyone want to know about what sort of companies and persons are involved in the new generic TLD game, take a look at these links. One of the biggest, Donuts LLC, is part of the same group of people who tried to buy .org<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;domainincite.com&#x2F;26198-breaking-failed-org-buyer-ethos-capital-buys-donuts" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;domainincite.com&#x2F;26198-breaking-failed-org-buyer-etho...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;domainnamewire.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;11&#x2F;19&#x2F;donuts-is-acquiring-afilias&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;domainnamewire.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;11&#x2F;19&#x2F;donuts-is-acquiring-af...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;domainnamewire.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;22&#x2F;breaking-ethos-capital-acquires-donuts&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;domainnamewire.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;22&#x2F;breaking-ethos-capital...</a><p>List of gTLDs run by Donuts: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;icannwiki.org&#x2F;Donuts" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;icannwiki.org&#x2F;Donuts</a><p>Or you can just google &quot;donuts abry acquisition dot org&quot;<p>Or you can google &quot;Ethos capital .org&quot;: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?client=firefox-b-d&amp;q=ethos+capital+.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?client=firefox-b-d&amp;q=ethos+cap...</a><p>Or you can google &quot;Fadi chehade ethos capital&quot;: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?client=firefox-b-d&amp;q=fadi+chehade+ethos+capital" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?client=firefox-b-d&amp;q=fadi+cheh...</a><p>In my personal opinion it&#x27;s nothing but a bunch of rent-seekers, in the classical economics textbook sense of the word.

In case anybody else is wondering what the two ccTLDs on the list are:<p>- .an was the Netherlands Antilles, now replaced by its constituents .cw, .sx and .bq<p>- .tp was East Timor, now renamed Timor Leste (.tl)<p>There are plenty more not listed here though, including .su (Soviet Union) and .yu (Yugoslavia).

If anyone is wondering about XN--PBT977C and XN--KPU716F, they are .珠宝 (Translated as .Jewelry) and .手表 (Translated as .Watch). I believe the latter means watch as in wristwatch, not watch as in watch a movie.

It is missing what is (to the best of my knowledge) the first ever deleted TLD – .nato – deleted in July 1996 – <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;.nato" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;.nato</a>

I didn&#x27;t know that companies and institutions could create TLDs with their name, fully dedicated to them.<p>At this point, why not just accept any string of characters up to a certain lenght as a TLD? We&#x27;ve already lost the advantages of having fewer TLDs, no one can remember what is and isn&#x27;t a TLD, so we have to assume that <i>anything</i> could be a TLD.<p>I don&#x27;t realy agree with the proliferation of so many TLDs, but the damage is already done and the logical step forward is to let anytjing be a TLD.

In case you are wondering what whacky top-level-domains there are right now (there are over 1000), I&#x27;m working on a faster search &amp; categorisation of them at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;domain.garden" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;domain.garden</a>.<p>While some extensions are just absurd, I think there is a good branding potential with choosing some of these TLDs (like for crisp.chat, frame.work or magic.link).

I find it odd that TLD’s can be bought and sold in such a manner. I understand those like .edu, .gov, .com, and country denoted TLD’s because they seem to denote a purpose behind the ownership and I was under the assumption that ICANN simply maintained them as a non-profit. It looks to be more like a money fueled rat race to swoop up as many names as possible for the purpose of land lording over them. Perhaps it’s a limited and cynical take, but is there more to the picture?<p>I’ve heard of decentralized protocols like Handshake attempt to decentralize the entire sector of TLD’s but they just seem be riddled with early profit seekers buying up all the names, so it seems unlikely the large browsers will incorporate them. Can anyone speak on the TLD space and it’s future? What was the incentive of ICANN starting the gTLD’s and what are the assumptions behind browsers accepting TLD’s?

Namebase[0] is a marketplace built upon Handshake[1], a decentralized ICANN (simplistic comparison). I checked these dead TLDs against Namebase and a fair number of them are blocked from auction. However, a surprising number of them have already been claimed.<p>I created auctions for the remainders.<p>Granted, unless your devices are using a Handshake resolver (or NextDNS[3]), you won&#x27;t be able to actually use these domains but browser adoption seems (tentatively) likely. Puma Browser[4] (mobile app) supports Handshake so who knows...these dead TLDs may see life again.<p>--<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;namebase.io" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;namebase.io</a><p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;handshake.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;handshake.org</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nextdns.io" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nextdns.io</a><p>[3]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pumabrowser.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pumabrowser.com</a>

I still want to know why there is no .bbq TLD.

I wonder why .yu (Yugoslavia) isn&#x27;t there.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;.yu" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;.yu</a>

Site was very slow for me, so I made a snapshot:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20210226094451&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dzdb.caida.org&#x2F;tlds&#x2F;graveyard" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20210226094451&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dzdb.caida...</a>

.bnl - Buy n Large from WALL·E<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pixar.fandom.com&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Buy_n_Large" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pixar.fandom.com&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Buy_n_Large</a>

A lot of those unused TLDs seem to be brands. The companies behind the brands may have bought some of them to keep squatters at bay.<p>At any rate, it&#x27;s a way for brand-owning companies, or squatters hoping to shake down those companies, to help support ICANN financially. TLDs are expensive to register.

Some of those at the end seem to be IDN test TLDs[1], which, if Wikipedia is to be believed, were created in October of 2007.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;IDN_Test_TLDs" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;IDN_Test_TLDs</a>

ICANN really overplayed its hand with TLDs. It turns out there&#x27;s obvious massive value in legacy ones like .com, but they acted a bit too slowly with country hack domains like .io, and then massively overdid it with some of the recent expansions.

And each of these sent at least $250K to ICANN to open up the TLD right? What a scamola.

This is really interesting, thanks!<p>I was doing registry work at the time the new gtld program was launching, and remember thinking how silly it all was but specifically some of the tlds being sought. Sure enough, I recognize a few of them listed.

I remember some people predicting that every big brand would have its own TLD instead of .com<p>So you&#x27;d go to `iphone.apple`, `zero.cocacola` or `order.macdonald` etc..<p>I guess that didn&#x27;t workout yet.

Hi everyone,<p>This is actually my project that I started years ago to track changes in root zones files. Let me know if you have any questions.

Is there a way to determine how risk a TLD is in this regard?<p>Keen to use a .land for something but would suck if it disappeared.

.Web is still in dispute 5 years after the auction finished.<p>When will .exe, .jpg or .png ever also be in TLD?

I don&#x27;t get it. Did ICANN approve those TLDs and later remove them?

TLDs,a solution to a problem nobody has.<p>It&#x27;s just a programmers solution to a programmers problem.<p>The only reason .com even matters is because it got ingrained in people&#x27;s minds early on.<p>You could drop all TLDs tomorrow and nobody would care.

Some of these would have been create as an internal domain (think Windows Domain Controller domains) but never as a domain for consumers to type in. No one was ever going to type in “tractors.newholland” when newholland.com exists.<p>The high cost of the custom TLDs really keep them from being useful for internal systems though.