ICANN reveals bids for new top-level domains

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”.

For years, only ICANN could decide on new GTLDs.

The governance body changed that policy and in 2012 allowed over 1,200 new GTLDs.

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.