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Every day, everyone who uses the Internet uses the domain name system. The key to the domain name system lies in the highest level of the system, the top level domains. These are the domains such as.com, org and. Net. While you're probably very familiar with a few of these, there's actually a lot more. A whole lot more. And a lucky few top level domain name holders actually managed to hit the jackpot. Learn more about top level domain names and how they're organized and distributed on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by Quinn's. As the weather cools here in Wisconsin, I'm swapping in the pieces that actually get the job done that are warm, durable and built to last. And Quince delivers every time with wardrobe staples that'll carry you through the season. I've told you before about my duvet cover, my blanket and my black cashmere sweater that I all got on Quince, all of which will be helping me get through this fall and winter. 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It's basically like a glorified phone book for people who remember phonebooks. You put in an easy to remember name and it will then forward you to an Internet protocol address which is a not so easy to remember string of numbers. The domain name system is a hierarchical system. You have top level domain names or TLDs and then second level domain names and so on. Usually you just need two levels, but you can have more. In this episode I'm going to take a different approach and do a deeper dive on just the top level domain names because the story behind them is really interesting. For starters, there are way more top level domain names than most people realize. Depending on how you define it, there are between 1400 and 1500 top level domain names and most of us only recognize a small handful of these. Broadly Speaking, there are two types of top level domain names, generic TLDs and country TLDs. Generic TLDs are the ones you're familiar with such as.com, org, gov edu and others. Country TLDs are those like UK, US, RU and CN and others which all have exactly two letters. The origin of this system dates back not only before the creation of the Internet, but but even before the creation of computers. It dates back to the years immediately after the Second World War. This era witnessed the creation of numerous multinational organizations and treaties including the un, the International Monetary Fund and NATO. One of the problems that was addressed in the post war period was standards. Standards are vital in any industry or system that has a multinational reach. Perhaps the best example of a system that didn't have standards is electricity. When electrical standards were developed, they were developed on the national level and the result is that today we have a hodgepodge of different voltages and different electrical outlet types all over the world. Anyone who has traveled extensively has had to deal with the confusing mess of adapters that exist everywhere. There were various industries that required the development of technical standards to facilitate trade and manufacturing. To that end, the International Organization for Standardization, or ISO was established in 1947. If you've ever seen something that said that they were ISO certified. That's the same organization. The ISO covers a wide range of different industry standards. However, for the purpose of this episode, one of the things that they addressed was the issue of country names. Before the ISO, naming conventions for international postal codes and record keeping were inconsistent. The United States could be referred to as US or U, S, A or usa Germany might appear as De Ger, GE or just D. Switzerland was CH in some systems and SUI in others. And then there was the problem of countries that had similar Switzerland and Sweden, Austria and Australia. If you were to write down the abbreviation aus, which country were you referring to? This was something that was begging for a standard. In the early 1970s, the ISO finally got around to solving the problem. The ISO's Technical Committee 46, which covered information and documentation, and later Technical Committee 37, which covered terminology and language resources, developed the framework that became ISO 3166. ISO 3166 was published in 1974 and was titled Codes for the Representation of Names of Countries. It established two letter and three letter codes as concise identifiers for all countries and territories. The two letter form was modeled partly on the international vehicle registration codes and postal abbreviations which were already familiar in cross border use. The two letter codes went well beyond formal sovereign states and included territories in other sub national regions such as Puerto Rico, Aruba, Gibraltar and Antarctica. The ISO has also updated the list as new countries were created and some were deleted as they were dissolved. For example, Zaire used to be ZR and when it became the Democratic Republic of Congo it was changed to cd. None of this has anything to do with the Internet. In fact, the domain name system is not under the purview of the International Organization for Standardization. Fast forward to 1984. The early Internet was literally a list of IP addresses that you had to know to connect to another computer. The domain name system hierarchy was designed in 1983 and 1984 led by UCLA Computer scientist John Postol. The proposal that they came up with had a limited number of generic top level domain names. These included arpa.com, edu gov, mil and dot org. When it was finally implemented, the Net TLD was included as well. In addition to the generic TLDs, they also added country TLDs. Here postol faced a problem coming up a list of countries, especially for something as official as the Internet was a potential political landmine. His solution was to avoid making a list of countries altogether. Instead they just adopted the ISO list of two letter country codes by doing so they just let the ISO, a neutral third party, deal with the problem. For the most part, when the ISO makes a change to the list, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN updates the associated top level domain name. However, there are some exceptions. Su the top level domain name for the Soviet Union still exists, but ICANN has announced recently that it's going to be phased out and will be gone by the year 2030. In 1986, the.int TLD was added, which was intended for international organizations such as the World Health Organization and the African Union. It's still in use, but only a very small number of organizations can utilize it. As the Internet exploded in popularity in the 1990s, it became obvious that there was a need for more top level domain names. The.com TLD was becoming crowded and other TLDs had such niche uses that they were hardly ever used at all. In 1998, the previously mentioned ICANN was established to manage the domain name system. They put out a call for proposals for new TLDs in August of 2000 and in November they announced new generic aero biz, co op.info museum name and pro. They went through the same process in 2003 and in March of 2004 they announced Asia, Cat Jobs, Mobi Tel and Travel. The XXX TLD was introduced in 2011 and post in 2012. However, the question was now being raised was it really necessary to go through this process every time to make new TLDs? Couldn't any organization just make their own TLD? There was no technical reason why they couldn't just do that. In 2012 they vastly increased the number of top level domains by allowing organizations to bid on their own TLDs. When the application window opened in July 12th of 2012, it drew 1,930 applications for 1,409 distinct TLDs. The current fee for a custom top level domain is an upfront payment of $185,000 and then a fixed annual fee of $25,000 as well as a variable fee of $0.25 per domain registration under the TLD. Some of the TLDs that were originally sold went up for competitive bidding. App was won by Google for $25 million, shop was sold for 41.5 million and web was auctioned off for $135 million. And this is why there are so many top level domains now, the vast majority of which you have probably never heard of. Apple bought the rights to Apple and they hardly ever use it. They purchased it so no one else could have it. So of the 1400 and something TLDs that exist, the most popular are the ones you're familiar.com.org, net.info etc. However, some have a shocking number of domains registered under them that you've probably never come across, or if you did it was probably spam or a phishing attack. These include Top Loan and xyz, which have millions of domains registered. Now I want to go back to the country TLDs. Every country, no matter how big or how small, has its own top level domain. When the ISO created the country codes back in 1974, they had nothing special in mind. They certainly didn't know that the Internet would one day exist. As each of these countries can do with their TLDs as they see fit, some have utilized their TLDs as a significant source of revenue. In particular, two small countries, Tuvalu and Micronesia, hit the TLD jackpot. Their TLDs were TV and FM. For Tuvalu, the breakthrough came in 1998 and 2000. Tuvalu granted exclusive TV rights to commercial partners in deals that delivered tens of millions of dollars to the government and transform a tiny national asset into a major source of governmental revenue. Early arrangements involved Information CA and then TV, which was acquired by VeriSign in 2001. Media reports at the time described headline figures around $50 million across the initial term and noted that income has helped with expenses such as United nations dues. Tuvalu has a population of slightly less than 10,000 people, and having been there, I can tell you that the country is basically a village. After Verisign's contract ended in 2021, Tuvalu selected GoDaddy as the new registry operator, with reports indicating annual government revenues of approximately $10 million. Government budgets and press coverage indicate that TV royalties accounted for a huge share of national income in the late 2010s and early 2020s. Micronesia receives slightly less, on the order of around 2 to 4 million dollars per year, mostly from radio stations and PO. There are a host of other countries that sell their TLDs to lesser effect. Armenia has AM and Djibouti has DJ. Of interesting note is the small island territory of Tokelau. Tokelau is a territory of New Zealand with a population of approximately 1500 people. Its TLD is TK, which really doesn't have any meaning. In the early 2000s, Dutch entrepreneur Jus Zubier proposed using TK for free domain registration subsidized by advertising. Around 2001, Zubir negotiated with Tokelaun authorities to obtain the rights to operate the TK registry. He offered to provide free or subsidized Internet connectivity and pay for licensing fees. Because TK registrations were free and globally available, the domain experienced explosive growth in numbers. By the late 2000s and 2010s, it was often reported as one of the largest country TLDs by the number of registrations. However, the free model also led to abuse. Many TK domains were used for phishing and spam and other malicious behavior. Security researchers noted that TK has a disproportionately high abuse rate compared to more restrictive TLDs. Revenue figures aren't known, but for three tiny, extremely difficult to reach islands in the Pacific with no resources, their top level domain has become their greatest asset. The Central African Republic and Equatorial guinea have also created similar free website schemes with their top level domains. I'd like to conclude with the country that has experienced an incredible surge in its fortunes over just the last 12 months, largely due to its TLD, the Caribbean island of Anguilla. Anguilla's TLD just so happens to be AI. With the rise of artificial intelligence companies, there has been a corresponding increase in companies interested in acquiring AI domain name. Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2023, the number of AI domains has exploded. There were fewer than 200,000 registered just two years ago, and given current trends, there should be about a million in 2026. In 2022, sales of their domain name accounted for just 5% of Anguilla's government revenues. In 2025, it's estimated to be just under 50%. Most people who need a domain name tend to stick with the basic.com or.org depending on what it's for. However, there's a world of other top level domain names out there that most people don't even realize are options. However, the list of TLDs is not comprehensive. For example, oddly enough, there is no top level domain name for Pod or podcast, which seems like a massive oversight to me. So if anyone out there has $185,000 burning a hole in their pocket and is willing to pony up another 25 grand every year, you too can have your own very own top level domain name. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kieffer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon your support helps make this podcast possible. And I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. That's where everything happens that's outside the podcast, and links to those are available in the show Notes. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you too can have it read on the show.