Thank you all,

Evan raises an uncomfortable but important question that At-Large should not dismiss simply because the answer may challenge long-held assumptions.

The issue is not really whether typed URLs account for 4%, 7%, or 10% of user navigation. The deeper question is whether At-Large is aligning its priorities with how Internet users actually experience the Internet in 2026.

There is little doubt that the visibility of domain names in the user experience has diminished. Search engines, social media platforms, mobile applications, QR codes, AI assistants, recommendation engines, and embedded links increasingly mediate access to online resources. Most users no longer consciously interact with the DNS in the way they did twenty years ago.

However, I would caution against drawing the conclusion that domain names have therefore become irrelevant.

The DNS remains one of the foundational trust and identity layers of the Internet. Users may no longer type domains frequently, but they continue to depend on them indirectly every day. Domain names remain critical for authentication, email, business identity, digital sovereignty, routing, resilience, and trust. The fact that infrastructure becomes invisible does not make it unimportant. Most users never think about TCP/IP either, yet we would hardly conclude that Internet protocols no longer matter.

The more important challenge for At-Large is therefore not whether domains matter, but whether our policy priorities accurately reflect the risks and opportunities facing end users.

In that respect, Evan's criticism deserves serious consideration.

Too often, At-Large discussions become absorbed in registrar-registry relationships, procedural debates, and implementation details that may be highly relevant to contracted parties but only indirectly relevant to Internet users. The question we should continually ask is:

What tangible benefit does this policy discussion provide to Internet users?

Applied to the next round of new gTLDs, the answer cannot simply be "more choice."

Choice is only valuable if it advances identifiable public-interest goals.

From an end-user perspective, the more compelling questions are:

Will new gTLDs improve trust and reduce abuse?
Will they increase linguistic and cultural inclusion through IDNs?
Will they support underserved communities and regions?
Will they strengthen competition without creating instability?
Will they improve accessibility and meaningful participation in the digital economy?

These are questions where At-Large can and should add value.

I therefore agree with Alan's observation that At-Large's focus on IDNs, community applications, underserved regions, and fair contention resolution reflects areas where clear user interests are at stake.

At the same time, I also agree with Evan that At-Large should devote greater attention to issues that increasingly shape users' actual online experience:

DNS abuse and fraud;
trust and security;
privacy and data governance;
digital inclusion;
the impact of AI-driven discovery systems on Internet openness;
concentration of power in platforms and intermediaries;
preserving user choice and agency in a world where navigation is increasingly mediated by algorithms rather than browsers.

Indeed, one could argue that the future challenge for At-Large is not the decline of typed URLs but the rise of algorithmic gatekeepers.

If users increasingly reach information through search engines, app stores, social media feeds, and AI assistants, then questions of openness, interoperability, transparency, and user choice become central public-interest concerns. These concerns are directly connected to the Core Internet Values that At-Large has historically championed.

The real issue, therefore, is not whether the DNS is shrinking in importance. Rather, it is whether At-Large is sufficiently evolving its conception of end-user interests to reflect how people actually interact with the Internet today.

In my view, the answer is that we must do both: continue protecting the stability, security, and inclusiveness of the DNS while expanding our attention to the broader ecosystem of digital intermediaries that increasingly shape users' online experiences.

That evolution would not diminish At-Large's mission. It would strengthen its relevance.

Cheers,

Pari Esfandiari

President

Global TechnoPolitics Forum

Pario - Architects of Ideas

info@TechnoPolitics.org

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On Sun, May 31, 2026 at 6:35 PM Alan Greenberg via At-Large <at-large@icann.org> wrote:

I have never been one of the "Let a thousand flowers bloom" proponents. It was a foundational concept within ICANN and it obviously still is.

It may not help (or particularly hurt) end users - with a few possible exceptions.

Regardless, we are not going to stop this process, so I think that At-Large has correctly focused on a few areas of the program that do have importance to us:

- IDNs

- Community TLDs

- Underserved areas

- Contention resolution/auctions (which impacts ICANNs credibility and generates funds for "good things").

Alan

On Sun, May 31, 2026 at 8:45 AM Evan Leibovitch via At-Large <at-large@icann.org> wrote:

On Sat, May 30, 2026 at 9:22 PM <bzs@theworld.com> wrote:

One value of a domain is an identifier for a business or activity, like a phone number or trade name. What would you put on an ad if not your domain along with name, phone number, etc.? Whether few transcribe that to a URL bar is not really the concern of ICANN, what if you were selling million-dollar sports cars?

I think you missed my point entirely.

I look from the focused perspective of the Internet user, who is neither domain buyer nor seller, where none of the above matters. So long as I can reach my intended target easily I'm happy. How I got there is simply not a big deal, and as I mentioned the number of people who get where they're going by typing a URL is an extremely small proportion.

Were I to care about the marketing of a brand I would think its primary question would not be "which domain should I buy?" but rather "should I spend my money on a premium domain or SEO or referral advertising?".

But I don't care. This is At-Large and its role is not to sell domains or even the idea of domains; it's to advance that when domains are used they're in the best interests of Internet consumers who aren't anywhere on ICANN's revenue chain.

You're being too prescriptive. Either people buy domains or they don't, either the economics works for those involved or they don't*.

For the end-user the level of choice available to registrants is irrelevant.

Indeed for the end user, most of ALAC's interventions -- notably on processes related to the domain buyer-seller relationship -- are irrelevant.

That's why I keep asking for greater focus on the actual single global constituency ALAC is mandated to serve.

Otherwise it's like someone, an industry regulator like ICANN, saying sorry we have enough flavors of ice cream we don't need more.

Except ice cream actually requires physical ingredients. Allocate all your milk and sugar to some flavours and you're not able to make others. These are natural restraints.

Once a gTLD is allocated out of thin air, it can then create a nearly infinite number of subdomains (also out of thin air) so long as it can convince enough suckers to buy. No restraints.

I suspect that ICANN is not interested in the world knowing that no more than 7% of users (and likely even less) make use of hand-typed domains, let alone memorable ones, as it has a conflicted vested interest in maximizing revenue from applications.

On that note my feeling is that ICANN charges far too little for TLDs and this is why they flood the net with hundreds of new TLDs most of which are bound to become moribund and fail.

A relevance to end-users does exist here because stability matters. Bookmarking a destination URL, only for that bookmark to be invalid after some years because the TLD went away or changed policies decreases one's effective use of the Internet and it diminishes trust in the DNS. This stability/trust issue is probably the only element of gTLD expansion that should matter to At-Large. In that regard I agree with your assessment, and that ALAC should advocate for ICANN to charge much higher fees for gTLDs. I would go further and advocate for increasing the ICANN rental price of subdomains too.

It's become a high-level version of "domain tasting" if any remember that controversy. It encourages speculation in a product which should be providing trust and reliability.

I would posit that one of ALAC's only true advancements of end-user interests -- ever -- was its successful effort to eliminate domain tasting. Alan Greenberg deserves much praise for his role leading that.

* Criminality and abuse of the net aside, another area where new TLDs contribute but that hasn't been raised here, yet.

That depends on what you mean by "here". I raised it specifically in my original post in this thread, paragraph 5. It's a wholly valid claim that ICANN and ALAC have been asleep at the wheel on this very important end-user issue, which even SSAC refuses to sufficiently address. Only ALAC can make this issue matter to ICANN.

- Evan

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