Prior to the globalization of the Internet, its assignment of domain names was administered within the research and academic communities through the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority ( IANA ). As the Internet grew to a global service, in the 1990s, there was increasing pressure to add more "generic" top-level domain names, beyond the initial set, such as .com and .org and the two-letter country codes. Extensive debate within the Internet operational community did not resolve this. Finally, a composite group was formed, to create a proposal for the enhancement. The International Ad Hoc Committee ( IAHC ) was composed of members named by a variety of Internet and International sponsoring organizations.
32-422: The IAHC had a limited charter: "The IAHC is an international, multi-organization effort for specifying and implementing policies and procedures relating to iTLD." ('international' TLDs are now called 'generic' TLDs, or gTLDs.) Members of IAHC: The IAHC produced a draft proposal with a number of administrative recommendations, beyond the set of candidate gTLD names. These included: The group's work culminated in
64-571: A Punycode -translated ASCII domain name in the Domain Name System. Generic top-level domains (formerly categories ) initially consisted of .gov , .edu , .com , .mil , .org , and .net . More generic TLDs have been added, such as .info . The authoritative list of current TLDs in the root zone is published at the IANA website at https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/ . An internationalized country code top-level domain (IDN ccTLD)
96-466: A "Memorandum of Understanding". It describes a procedure of allocation and administration for domain names, specifically top-level domains . The "Generic Top Level Domain Memorandum of Understanding" ( gTLD-MoU ) was open to signature by any organization, with approximately 226 groups doing so. The organization was dissolved on 1 May 1997. Its effort was subsumed under the authority of ICANN . When
128-523: A TLD – for example, a webpage hosted on http://example/ , or an email address user@example . ICANN and IAB have spoken out against the practice, classifying it as a security risk among other concerns. ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) additionally claims that SMTP "requires at least two labels in the FQDN of a mail address" and, as such, mail servers would reject emails to addresses with dotless domains. ICANN has also published
160-461: A public blockchain like Ethereum . Oftentimes, these domains serve specific functions such as creating human-readable references to smart contract addresses used in DApps or personal wallet addresses . Generally, these non-standard domains are unreachable through the normal DNS resolution process and instead require clients to use some sort of transparent web proxy or gateway to access them In
192-543: A resolution in 2013 that prohibits the creation of dotless domains on gTLDs . ccTLDs , however, fall largely under their respective country's jurisdiction , and not under ICANN's. Because of this, there have been many examples of dotless domains on ccTLDs in spite of ICANN's vocal opposition. As of September 2023, that is the case of: Other ccTLDs with A or AAAA records, as of September 2023, include: .cm , .tk and .ws . A similar query to org ' s presented above can be made for ai , which shows A and MX records for
224-698: A similar TLD should be made available for adult and pornographic websites to settle the dispute of obscene content on the Internet, to address the responsibility of US service providers under the US Communications Decency Act of 1996. Several options were proposed including xxx , sex and adult . The .xxx top-level domain eventually went live in 2011. An older proposal consisted of seven new gTLDs: arts, firm, .info , nom, rec, .shop , and .web . Later .biz , .info , .museum , and .name covered most of these old proposals. During
256-662: A similar hidden pseudo-domain, .i2p, and Namecoin uses the .bit pseudo-domain. List of Internet top-level domains This list of Internet top-level domains ( TLD ) contains top-level domains , which are those domains in the DNS root zone of the Domain Name System of the Internet . A list of the top-level domains by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
288-640: Is a top-level domain with a specially encoded domain name that is displayed in an end-user application, such as a web browser , in its language-native script or alphabet (such as the Arabic alphabet ), or a non-alphabetic writing system (such as Chinese characters ). IDN ccTLDs are an application of the internationalized domain name (IDN) system to top-level Internet domains assigned to countries, or independent geographic regions. ICANN started to accept applications for IDN ccTLDs in November 2009, and installed
320-468: Is in charge of maintaining the DNS root zone . Originally, the top-level domain space was organized into three main groups: Countries , Categories , and Multiorganizations . An additional temporary group consisted of only the initial DNS domain, .arpa , and was intended for transitional purposes toward the stabilization of the domain name system. As of 2015, IANA distinguishes the following groups of top-level domains: Countries are designated in
352-589: Is maintained at the Root Zone Database. IANA also oversees the approval process for new proposed top-level domains for ICANN . As of April 2021 , their root domain contains 1502 top-level domains. As of March 2021 , the IANA root database includes 1589 TLDs. That also includes 68 that are not assigned (revoked), 8 that are retired and 11 test domains . Those are not represented in IANA's listing and are not in root.zone file (root.zone file also includes one root domain ). IANA distinguishes
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#1732801602345384-414: Is meant to avoid domain name collisions when new TLDs are registered. For example, programmers may have used custom local domains such as foo.bar or test.dev , which would both collide with the creation of gTLDs .bar in 2014 and .dev in 2019. While this does create apex DNS records of type A and MX, they do not qualify as a dotless domain, as the records should not point to real servers. For instance,
416-551: Is sometimes considered to be a generic top-level domain. A set of domain names is reserved by the Internet Engineering Task Force as special-use domain names . The practice originated in RFC 1597 for reserved address allocations in 1994 and reserved top-level domains in RFC 2606 of 1999, with additional reservations in later RFCs. These reserved names should not be used in production networks that utilize
448-528: Is the 2007 emergence of SWIFTNet Mail, which uses the swift pseudo-domain. The anonymity network Tor formerly used the top-level pseudo-domain .onion for onion services , which can only be reached with a Tor client because it uses the Tor onion routing protocol to reach the hidden service to protect the anonymity of users. However, the pseudo-domain became officially reserved in October 2015. i2p provides
480-463: Is the last part of the domain name , that is, the last non-empty label of a fully qualified domain name . For example, in the domain name www.example.com , the top-level domain is .com . Responsibility for management of most top-level domains is delegated to specific organizations by the ICANN , an Internet multi-stakeholder community, which operates the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and
512-815: The Democratic Republic of the Congo ), and .an for Netherlands Antilles (now .aw for Aruba , .cw for Curaçao and .sx for Sint Maarten ). In contrast to these, the TLD .su has remained active despite the collapse of the Soviet Union that it represents. Under the chairmanship of Nigel Roberts , ICANN 's ccNSO is working on a policy for the retirement of ccTLDs that have been removed from ISO 3166 . Around late 2000, ICANN discussed and finally introduced .aero , .biz , .coop , .info , .museum , .name , and .pro TLDs. Site owners argued that
544-906: The 32nd International Public ICANN Meeting in Paris in 2008, ICANN started a new process of TLD naming policy to take a "significant step forward on the introduction of new generic top-level domains". This program envisioned the availability of many new or already proposed domains, as well as a new application and implementation process. Observers believed that the new rules could result in hundreds of new gTLDs being registered. On 13 June 2012, ICANN announced nearly 2,000 applications for top-level domains, which began installation throughout 2013. The first seven – bike , clothing , guru , holdings , plumbing , singles , and ventures – were released in 2014. ICANN rejected several proposed domains to include .home and .corp due to conflicts regarding gTLDs that are in use in internal networks. Investigation into
576-503: The A record contains the IP 127.0.53.53, a loopback address (see IPv4 § Addressing ), picked as a mnemonic to indicate a DNS-related problem, as DNS uses port 53 . Several networks, such as BITNET , CSNET , and UUCP , existed that were in widespread use among computer professionals and academic users, but were not interoperable directly with the Internet and exchanged mail with the Internet via special email gateways. For relaying purposes on
608-425: The Domain Name System by their two-letter ISO country code ; there are exceptions, however (e.g., .uk ). This group of domains is, therefore, commonly known as country-code top-level domains (ccTLD). Since 2009, countries with non–Latin-based scripts may apply for internationalized country code top-level domain names, which are displayed in end-user applications in their language-native script or alphabet, but use
640-562: The TLD: Historically, many other ccTLDs have had A or AAAA records. On 3 September 2013, as reported by the IETF , they were the following: .ac , .dk , .gg , .io , .je , .kh , .sh , .tm , .to , and .vi . Following a 2014 resolution by ICANN, newly registered TLDs must implement the following A, MX, TXT, and SRV apex DNS records – where <TLD> stands for the registered TLD – for at least 90 days: This requirement
672-567: The U.S. government's activities concerning Internet Domain Name administration issued its preliminary " Green Paper " in 1998, the efforts of the IAHC were not referenced. However, the final "White Paper" gave credit to the IAHC efforts: "The IAHC issued a draft plan in December 1996 that introduced unique and thoughtful concepts for the evolution of DNS administration." The structure of ICANN, including
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#1732801602345704-542: The UDRP and the registrar/registry construct, was ultimately based on the substance of the proposals in the IAHC gTLD-MoU. The IAHC proposed seven new top-level domains: The gTLD-MoU interim Policy Oversight Committee replaced .store with .shop . The IAHC and gTLD-MOU effort did not produce implementation of these names. (The .info that now exists came from a later proposal under ICANN.) Top-level domains Early research and development: Merging
736-490: The case of alternative DNS roots , organizations or projects make use of the same mechanisms of the DNS but instead take on the role of ICANN in managing and administering an entirely separate root zone, thus having the ability to create new TLDs independently. However, this doesn't make these domains any less isolated from the rest of the internet, though the ability for clients to resolve them theoretically only requires switching to
768-721: The conflicts was conducted at ICANN's request by Interisle Consulting . The resulting report was to become known as the Name Collision issue, which was first reported at ICANN 47. Due to the structure of DNS , each node in the tree has its own collection of records , and since top-level domains are nodes in DNS, they have records of their own. For example, querying org itself (with a tool such as dig , host , or nslookup ) returns information on its nameservers : Dotless domains are top-level domains that take advantage of that fact, and implement A , AAAA or MX DNS records to serve webpages or allow incoming email directly on
800-531: The domain name system. However, after it had been used for reverse DNS lookup , it was found impractical to retire it, and is used today exclusively for Internet infrastructure purposes such as in-addr.arpa for IPv4 and ip6.arpa for IPv6 reverse DNS resolution, uri.arpa and urn.arpa for the Dynamic Delegation Discovery System , and e164.arpa for telephone number mapping based on NAPTR DNS records . For historical reasons, .arpa
832-619: The first set into the Domain Names System in May 2010. The first set was a group of Arabic names for the countries of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. By May 2010, 21 countries had submitted applications to ICANN, representing 11 scripts. The domain .arpa was the first Internet top-level domain. It was intended to be used only temporarily, aiding in the transition of traditional ARPANET host names to
864-949: The following groups of top-level domains: Seven generic top-level domains were created early in the development of the Internet, and predate the creation of ICANN in 1998. As of 20 May 2017, there were 255 country-code top-level domains , purely in the Latin alphabet, using two-character codes. As of June 2022 , the number was 316, with the addition of internationalized domains. Internationalised domain names have been proposed for Japan and Libya . publications (Dating) Dating & matchmaker sites, singles meetup groups, traditional “classified” sites, travel sites & city guides (Actual use also includes Fediverse services, such as Mastodon ) All of these TLDs are internationalized domain names (IDN) and support second-level IDNs. ICANN/IANA has created some special-use domain names which are meant for technical purposes. ICANN/IANA owns all of
896-629: The gateways, messages associated with these networks were labeled with suffixes such as .bitnet , .oz , .csnet , or .uucp , but these domains did not exist as top-level domains in the public Domain Name System of the Internet. Most of these networks have long since ceased to exist, and although UUCP still gets significant use in parts of the world where Internet infrastructure has not yet become well established, it subsequently transitioned to using Internet domain names, and pseudo-domains now largely survive as historical relics. One notable exception
928-459: The global domain name system. In the late 1980s, InterNIC created the .nato domain for use by NATO . NATO considered none of the then-existing TLDs as adequately reflecting their status as an international organization . Soon after this addition, however, InterNIC also created the .int TLD for the use by international organizations in general, and persuaded NATO to use the second level domain nato.int instead. The nato TLD, no longer used,
960-518: The networks and creating the Internet: Commercialization, privatization, broader access leads to the modern Internet: Examples of Internet services: A top-level domain ( TLD ) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in lower levels, it
992-483: The special-use domain names. Besides the TLDs managed (or at least tracked) by IANA or ICANN, other independent groups have created, or had attempted to create, their own TLDs with varying technical specifications, functions, and outcomes. The IETF has submitted several requests for comments on TLDs that could be used to represent local devices and services. Blockchain-based domains are registered and exchanged using
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1024-533: Was finally removed in July 1996. Other historical TLDs are .cs for Czechoslovakia (now using .cz for Czech Republic and .sk for Slovakia ), .dd for East Germany (using .de after reunification of Germany ), .yu for SFR Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro (now using .ba for Bosnia and Herzegovina , .hr for Croatia , .me for Montenegro , .mk for North Macedonia , .rs for Serbia and .si for Slovenia ), .zr for Zaire (now .cd for
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