Dear All,

You might be interested in learning more about Private-Use TLDs. In networking terms, they are similar to Private IP Addresses where such addresses are not routable over the Internet, and are only used for Intranet and privately-used networks.

The need for private-use identifiers is not unique for domain names, and a useful analogy can be drawn between the uses of private IP address space and those of a private-use TLD. Network operators use private IP address space to number resources not intended to be externally accessible, and private-use TLDs are used by network operators in a similar fashion. This document proposes reserving a string in a manner similar to the current use of private IP address space. A similar rationale can be used to reserve more strings in case the need arises.

You can access a paper authored by ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) here >> https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/sac-113-en.pdf.

To get a sense of how much such private-use TLDs effect the domain name system and the root-server system in terms of queries generated, you are advised to read this paper >> https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/octo-007-14apr20-en.pdf.

More SSAC authored papers can be found/downloaded here >> https://www.icann.org/groups/ssac/documents.

More ICANN authored Technical papers can be found/downloaded here >> https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/octo-publications-2019-05-24-en.

Thank you,

Fahd Batayneh

ICANN