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US government opposes most new gTLDs

Kevin Murphy, June 9, 2025, 13:56:28 (UTC), Domain Policy

The US government has come out against most of the new gTLDs likely to be applied for in next year’s application round, saying they will contribute to the “global phishing problem”.

The eyebrow-raising revelation came during an intervention from Susan Chalmers, the country’s senior representative on the Governmental Advisory Committee, at the ICANN 83 meeting in Prague this afternoon.

Chalmers said the US is not opposed to the next round in general, but “has some reservations” that the expansion could make DNS abuse worse and that ICANN should “consider how to limit the expansion appropriately”.

Here are her remarks in full:

The United States has some reservations about the next round of new gTLDs. Specifically we have concerns that expanding the DNS too broadly can lead to more spam and DNS abuse for everyone on the internet. Our concerns are not for a next round in general to be clear. We see value in certain categories of applications such as for geo-TLDs and for internationalized domain names. In some cases it makes sense to add new strings to the DNS, but in light of the global phishing problem (which we will learn more about tomorrow) and similar concerns the United States is of the view that we should not expand the DNS too broadly. As the GAC did in 2013 we must consider how to limit the expansion appropriately to take into account public interest impacts.

The US, which has at least five civil servants attending the GAC meetings in Prague, was the only government to openly oppose new gTLDs during this afternoon’s session.

The position puts the US at odds with likely the majority of next-round new gTLD applicants, which could be a cause for concern.

While there will no doubt be some worthy geographic TLDs and IDNs applied for, if 2026 is anything like the 2012 round most applications will be commercial in nature, with as broad an appeal as possible.

Sadly, no doubt some applicants will be the kind of chancers who want to make their millions selling disposable domains for a buck apiece to spammers.

While Chalmers’ remarks may be somewhat surprising, the US position under Trump isn’t a million miles away from the Obama administration’s position in the run-up to the 2012 round.

Back then, the US tried successfully to strong-arm ICANN into giving the GAC more powers over which gTLDs could and could not enter the root. Those powers have been grandfathered in to the rules for next year’s round.

But the political landscape was different back then. ICANN was still a US government contractor, which irked other governments. Some nations wanted ICANN’s powers to be expatriated and given to a body like the International Telecommunications Union. The US was keen to keep the Org under its jurisdiction, and thought a beefed-up GAC was the way to do it.

It seems unlikely that the US could derail the next round entirely. Technically, it would have to win over the full GAC to produce a consensus against the expansion, but one of the hallmarks of the Trump administration so far has been its refusal to play nicely or respect multilateralism, so who knows what might happen.

The US could also use ICANN’s own rules to object to individual new gTLD applications it deems risky or unworthy.

A GAC consensus advice objection against an applications has historically been enough to kill it dead, but any nation can also choose to go it alone by issuing a so-called GAC Early Warning.

An Early Warning is a unilateral notice to an applicant that a government doesn’t like their application and may try to get it rejected or changed in some way. Applicants are free to ignore such warnings, but are encouraged to engage with the government in question to resolve their concerns.

Could Chalmers’ remarks today be the first early warning?

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Comments (4)

  1. Antony Van Couvering says:
    June 9, 2025 at 4:11 pm

    “Sadly, no doubt some applicants will be the kind of chancers who want to make their millions selling disposable domains for a buck apiece to spammers.”

    After a long and relaxing time away, it’s refreshing to find that seasoned observers of the space are finally distinguishing between chancers who sell disposable domains to spammers for a buck, and VeriSign and Afilias who sell them for a thousand per cent more.

    Reply
  2. Jeff Neuman says:
    June 10, 2025 at 9:38 am

    There are some significant changes to the GAC’s control over new gTLDs from the last round. Most significantly there is no GAC veto right. Last round there was a presumption that if the GAC had advice against a TLD, there was a presumption that the TLD would not be delegated.

    That presumption no longer exists. GAC Advice on applications is treated as normal GAC advice under the bylaws. This not only takes away the veto right, but also allows for a mechanism for applicants to get a clear rationale for their Advice plus provides a mechanism to work out ways to address the GAC Advice. This may not sound like a big difference, but it is.

    Reply
    • Kevin Murphy says:
      June 11, 2025 at 7:02 pm

      True, but normal GAC advice is still treated very preferentially by the ICANN board. It’s less uncommon now for the board to formally disagree with the GAC, but it’s still uncommon.

      Reply
  3. Crews Gore says:
    June 16, 2025 at 5:57 pm

    “ We see value in certain categories of applications such as for geo-TLDs and for internationalized domain names.”

    dotBrands should have absolutely been included in this statement, as they have no abuse in their zones.

    I do not know why IDN’s would be less vulnerable to abuse.

    Reply

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