For most Internet users, the characters after the final dot in a web address barely register. We type .com, .org, .net or .asia without thinking much about who decides which extensions exist, who can operate them, or what it takes to create a new one.
But behind that small part of a web address lies an important layer of Internet infrastructure.
The Domain Name System (DNS) allows people to navigate the Internet using human-readable names rather than numerical IP addresses. Because names are easier for people to remember and can carry meaning, the DNS plays an important role in making the Internet easier to use. At the highest level of this system are top-level domains (TLDs), including generic top-level domains (gTLDs) such as .com, .org and .net. ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, coordinates this global naming system.
Operating a new gTLD is therefore more than choosing a memorable name. A successful applicant becomes responsible for operating a registry and maintaining a part of the DNS. That involves technical, financial and operational responsibilities, as well as navigating a complex set of ICANN policies and procedures. (ICANN, 2026 Round Applicant Guidebook)
This makes ICANN’s 2026 New Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Round more than a technical exercise.
The 2026 Round also represents an attempt to address some of the barriers that shaped participation in the previous round, including the financial cost of applying, the technical requirements involved in operating a registry and the specialized knowledge needed to navigate ICANN’s processes.
But the existence of these reforms does not by itself tell us whether participation has become more diverse. With 1,616 applications now confirmed to proceed, the next question is who is behind them, where they come from, and which languages and communities they represent.
This article therefore examines how the 2026 Round has attempted to lower barriers to participation—and what the emerging application data can tell us about whether those efforts may broaden participation in the DNS.
The application window opened on 30 April 2026 and closed on 12 August 2026, giving organizations another opportunity to apply for new gTLDs for the first time since the 2012 round. A total of 1,663 applications were submitted, of which 1,616 have been confirmed to proceed after the required evaluation fees were received. (ICANN, ICANN Confirms Number of Applications Proceeding in the 2026 Round)
The significance of the 2026 Round lies not only in the opportunity to create new gTLDs, but in how ICANN has tried to make participation more accessible. The Round introduced measures to reduce financial, technical and institutional barriers that shaped participation in the past, including an expanded Applicant Support Program, fee reductions and a pre-evaluated Registry Service Provider system.
But whether these changes actually broaden participation cannot be determined from the rules alone. It depends on who was able to apply, which regions and communities are represented, and which applications ultimately progress through the process.
This leads to the central question of this article: To what extent has ICANN’s 2026 New gTLD Round addressed the financial, technical and structural barriers that have historically favoured well-resourced actors?
To understand what has changed, it is useful to first look at what participation required in the previous round.
Looking Back at 2012: Who Was Able to Enter?
The previous major New gTLD Round took place in 2012. ICANN received 1,930 applications from 60 countries and territories. Of those, 911 came from North America, 675 from Europe, 303 from the Asia-Pacific region, 24 from Latin America and the Caribbean, and 17 from Africa. There were also 116 applications for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) using non-Latin scripts.
The scale of Internet use across these regions provides important context for understanding the question of representation in Internet infrastructure governance. In 2024, around 5.5 billion people worldwide were online, and the Asia-Pacific region alone had an Internet-use rate of about 66%, while Africa’s rate was about 38%. Europe and North America were already at around 91% and 87% respectively. (ITU, Facts and Figures 2024)
This does not mean that the number of Internet users should be expected to translate directly into the number of gTLD applications. However, it highlights the broader imbalance: regions with hundreds of millions of Internet users, including Asia-Pacific and Africa, contributed far fewer applications to the 2012 round than North America and Europe.
The geographic distribution is striking. But the numbers alone do not explain why participation was so uneven.
Participating in the round required substantial financial, technical and organizational resources.
The 2012 gTLD evaluation fee was US$185,000. Applicants had to pay a US $5,000 deposit when requesting an application slot and the remaining US $180,000 as part of the application. But the application fee was only one part of the barrier. Applicants also needed to prepare substantial documentation, demonstrate the financial and operational capacity required to operate a registry, while meeting its technical requirements directly or through a backend provider, understand ICANN’s policies and procedures, and potentially obtain external legal and technical expertise. Participation therefore required not only significant capital, but also specialized knowledge and organizational capacity. The fee covered the cost-recovery model for the evaluation process, while other expenses could arise during the application and operation of a registry. (ICANN, 2012 Applicant Guidebook)
Beyond the financial cost, applicants also needed to navigate ICANN’s policies, application procedures and evaluation requirements. This institutional knowledge—what might be described as “ICANN know-how”—was another capability that applicants had to develop or access.
This matters because not all potential applicants started from the same position.
An established technology company or registry operator could draw on lawyers, engineers, consultants and existing infrastructure. A small civil society organization, community group or organization from a lower-income economy might have had a compelling reason to apply for a domain representing its identity, language or community, but significantly less access to the resources needed to navigate the process.
The regional distribution of the 2012 applications provides an important indication of the resulting participation gap. Nearly half of all applications came from North America, compared with fewer than one per cent from Africa. (ICANN, 2012 application statistics)
These figures should not be interpreted as proof that the application rules alone caused the geographic imbalance. The history of the commercial Internet, the concentration of the technology industry and registry businesses, levels of Internet development, and organizations’ differing interests in applying for gTLDs all contributed to regional differences.
Nevertheless, the 2012 round provides an important starting point for examining a broader governance problem:
If participation in Internet infrastructure requires substantial financial resources and specialized knowledge, formally opening the process does not necessarily make participation equally accessible.
From Access to Participation
The 2012 experience raises a broader Internet governance question: access to the Internet is not the same as participation in shaping its infrastructure. A person or community may be able to use websites and digital services every day without having the financial, technical or institutional capacity to participate in the systems that govern how those services operate.
The DNS is a good example.
Most people never think about who decides whether .com, .org, .asia or a new extension can exist. Yet these decisions influence how businesses, governments, communities and individuals establish digital identities and provide services online.
The New gTLD programme makes this less visible layer of Internet governance more visible.
It raises a question that applies far beyond domain names:
Who has the capacity to participate when global Internet resources are being allocated?
The issue becomes even more significant when we consider language.
Why a Multilingual Internet Depends on Participation
The Internet is used in thousands of languages, but its underlying technologies have not always accommodated linguistic diversity equally.
Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) make it possible to use characters from different writing systems in domain names. The 2026 New gTLD Round expands support for Internationalized Domain Names across a wide range of scripts, including Arabic, Chinese, Devanagari and Thai.
For the Asia-Pacific region, this development is particularly significant.
The region contains some of the world’s most widely used writing systems alongside thousands of languages, including many that remain under-resourced in the digital environment.
But linguistic diversity in the DNS is not only a question of which scripts the technology can support. It is also a question of who has the resources and capacity to create and operate domains using those scripts. If communities using a particular language face financial, technical or institutional barriers to participating in the DNS, simply making their script technically eligible does not guarantee that their language will become more visible in the namespace.
Allowing more scripts to be used in domain names can help communities build online identities that reflect the languages people actually use. But technical support for a script alone does not guarantee meaningful linguistic inclusion.
A domain name is useful only if the wider Internet can recognize and process it.
This is where Universal Acceptance (UA) becomes important, bringing the technical and participation dimensions together.
Universal Acceptance is the principle that all valid domain names and email addresses—including those using different scripts, languages or newer domain extensions—should work consistently across websites, applications, devices and digital services.
UNESCO and ICANN highlighted this challenge in a joint 2026 policy brief on Universal Acceptance, arguing that people should be able to participate in the digital world in their own languages and scripts. The brief provides recommendations related to policy development, digital public services, procurement, capacity-building and awareness. (UNESCO, Advancing Universal Acceptance of All Domain Names and Email Addresses for a Multilingual Internet)
This connection has become even more relevant in September 2026: ICANN has now published its final Guidelines for Advancing Universal Acceptance Adoption, providing a framework for improving UA implementation across technology companies, software developers, governments, the DNS industry and other stakeholders. (ICANN, Guidelines for Advancing Universal Acceptance Adoption)
UNESCO has also warned that gaps in Universal Acceptance can create barriers for users of Indigenous and under-resourced languages, limiting participation and deepening the digital language divide.
This creates an important connection between multilingualism and participation.
A more multilingual DNS requires not only technical standards that support more scripts, but also communities and organizations that have the capacity to participate in the DNS ecosystem.
If a language can technically appear after the dot but the communities using that language do not have the resources or expertise to establish and operate relevant digital infrastructure, linguistic inclusion remains incomplete.
In this sense, the question of who can participate in the DNS is closely connected to the question of whose languages and identities are represented within it.
What Changed in 2026?
The 2026 Round was designed with many of these challenges in mind.
One of the most significant changes is the expanded Applicant Support Program (ASP).
The programme provides both financial and non-financial support to qualifying applicants. According to ICANN, supported applicants can receive capacity development, access to pro bono professional service providers, an Applicant Counselor and resources to help them understand the application process, what it means to operate a gTLD and how to participate in ICANN’s multistakeholder community.
The financial assistance is particularly notable.
The standard 2026 gTLD evaluation fee is US$227,000 per application. Applicants who qualify for the Applicant Support Program receive a 75–85% reduction in this evaluation fee. (ICANN, gTLD Evaluation Fee FAQ)
The 2026 Round introduces a new approach to the technical evaluation of gTLD applications. In previous rounds, applicants could already outsource backend registry services to third-party providers. What has changed is that ICANN now evaluates RSPs separately and in advance through a dedicated RSP Evaluation Program. Applicants can then select an RSP that has successfully completed ICANN’s evaluation process to provide the required registry services. This separates the evaluation of the technical aspects of operating a gTLD from the evaluation of the gTLD application itself, reducing the time and cost involved in the evaluation process. (ICANN, Registry Service Provider Evaluation Program)
This distinction matters because the 2026 Round changes how technical capability is evaluated. The new system is intended to make the application process more efficient and give applicants access to providers whose technical capabilities have already been evaluated by ICANN.
Did the Applicant Support Program Reach Under-Resourced Actors?
There are already some encouraging signs that the support mechanisms attracted interest from organizations that may otherwise have faced barriers to participation.
In the 2012 round, only three applications were submitted to the Applicant Support Program. In the 2026 round, 78 applications were submitted, of which 56 applicants ultimately qualified for support. (ICANN, 2026 Round Applicant Support Program Closes on a High Note)
The increase is substantial. It suggests that there is significant demand for financial and non-financial assistance, and that the expanded programme attracted interest from organizations across multiple regions.
However, these figures do not by themselves show whether supported organizations will ultimately succeed in obtaining and operating new gTLDs. They show that the support mechanism was used; they do not yet tell us whether it has fundamentally changed the distribution of participation.
The Cost of a Dot Is More Than the Application Fee
Looking only at the US$227,000 evaluation fee risks making the accessibility problem appear simpler than it is.
For example, an organization that receives an 85% discount would pay substantially less than the standard fee. But it would still need to understand ICANN’s requirements, prepare an application, demonstrate financial and operational capacity and plan for the long-term operation of a registry.
The more useful question, therefore, is not whether every barrier has disappeared, but whether the remaining barriers are still significant enough to shape who is able to participate.
The remaining requirements still shape who can realistically sustain participation in the DNS. Applicants still need an eligible organization, the ability to meet ICANN’s requirements and the capacity to sustain a registry over time.
The application may be more accessible than before. Whether participation itself has become more diverse is a question the application data can help answer.
What Can We Actually Conclude?
The reforms provide a basis for asking a more difficult question: have the conditions for participation changed enough to alter who is actually able to enter the DNS?
But these changes tell us more about how ICANN has attempted to lower barriers than about whether those barriers have actually been overcome.
The increase in participation in the Applicant Support Program is encouraging. So is the wider linguistic scope of the programme. Yet neither tells us by itself whether organizations that were previously excluded from the process have been able to participate successfully.
That requires looking at the applications themselves.
Who applied? Where are they based? Which languages and scripts are represented? How many applicants received support? How many applications came from community organizations, and how many came from established commercial actors?
These questions matter because a more inclusive set of rules does not automatically guarantee a more inclusive outcome.
The 2026 Round should therefore be seen as an opportunity to test whether reducing financial, technical and institutional barriers can actually broaden participation in one of the Internet’s core systems.
The First Numbers Are In—but the Bigger Picture Is Still Emerging
The application window closed on 12 August 2026 at 23:59 UTC.
ICANN initially reported more than 1,600 primary applications after the submission window closed. On 22 September, it confirmed that 1,663 applications had been submitted and that 1,616 would proceed after the required evaluation fees were received. (ICANN, ICANN Confirms Number of Applications Proceeding in the 2026 Round)
The scale of the 2026 application round is therefore broadly comparable with the 1,930 applications submitted in 2012. But the total number alone tells us little about whether participation has become more inclusive.
For that, we need to know who submitted those applications.
How many came from Africa?
How many came from Asia-Pacific?
How many were applications for IDNs?
How many were from community organizations?
How many were from established global companies?
And how many were submitted by organizations that benefited from the Applicant Support Program?
These are the numbers that can turn a discussion about policy design into an assessment of participation.However, the most detailed picture is still just days away. ICANN’s Reveal Day is scheduled for 7 October 2026, at 18:00 UTC, when the identities of applicants and the strings they have applied for will become publicly available. (ICANN, Reveal Day and Other 2026 Round Milestones)
What Happens Next?
The end of the application window is only the beginning of the next stage of the process.
ICANN will conduct an administrative review of the applications. It expects to publish the public-facing portions of applications that pass this check on Reveal Day, including the applied-for gTLD strings and initial contention sets for identical strings. ICANN has scheduled Reveal Day for 7 October 2026. On that day, the organization will publish the list of applications proceeding through the programme, the applied-for gTLD strings, any applicable variant or replacement strings, contention sets and public portions of the applications. (ICANN, ICANN Announces Date for Reveal Day and Other 2026 Round Milestones)
Reveal Day will be particularly important because it will provide the information needed to examine who is participating in the 2026 Round and how that participation compares with 2012. Once the applications become public, we will be able to examine:
Geographic diversity:
Are regions that were underrepresented in 2012 better represented in 2026?
Linguistic diversity:
How many applications use Internationalized Domain Names, and which scripts are represented?
Community participation:
How many applications appear to serve communities rather than primarily commercial interests?
Access to support:
How many applicants came through the Applicant Support Program?
Competition:
Which strings have multiple applicants, creating contention sets?
These questions will not by themselves determine whether the 2026 programme succeeds. But they will provide a much better basis for assessing whether the reforms have changed the composition of participation.
Why Should Young People Care?
DNS governance can seem far removed from the issues that usually attract attention in Internet policy discussions.
There are no viral videos about registry agreements. A DNS evaluation fee is unlikely to become a trending topic. And the characters after the dot can look insignificant compared with the platforms and applications that people interact with every day.
Yet the New gTLD programme reveals something fundamental about the Internet.
The Internet is not simply a collection of websites and apps. It is an infrastructure governed through technical standards, institutions, policies and processes.
Who can participate in those processes matters.
Understanding Internet governance therefore means looking beneath the services we use and asking:
Who builds the systems beneath them?
Who writes the rules?
Who has the resources to participate?
Whose languages and communities are represented?
The New gTLD Round provides a concrete example of why these questions matter.
It shows that building a more inclusive Internet is not simply a matter of connecting more people.
It also means creating opportunities for a wider range of people and communities to shape the infrastructure itself.
So, Who Gets a Dot?
The answer is still unfolding.
The 2026 New gTLD Round has clearly changed the conditions of participation. ICANN has introduced new forms of financial, technical and institutional support, while expanding the linguistic possibilities of the DNS.
But the more important question is whether those changes will alter who is actually able to participate.
The 1,616 applications confirmed to proceed give us an important starting point. The next stages will reveal who those applicants are, where they come from, which languages they represent, and how many are able to progress through the process.
Ultimately, the success of the 2026 Round should not be measured only by how many new domain extensions are created.
It should also be measured by whether the ability to shape the Internet’s namespace becomes less concentrated among organizations that already possess the greatest financial, technical and institutional resources.
For something as small as the characters after a dot, that is a surprisingly big question.
And it reminds us that an inclusive Internet is not created only when more people can use it.
It is created when more people have meaningful opportunities to shape how it works, whose identities it represents, and what its future looks like.
NetMission Digest – 2026: Issue #9 (October 03, 2026)
Written by Jenie Fernando (Reviewed by Sherry Shek)