A week after the application period which ICANN had opened came to an end, the information showing who had applied for what is being put together mostly on the basis of voluntary disclosures, and a rule change hidden in the Guidebook has quietly altered the economic situation regarding every contested string.

The second-ever application window for new gTLDs ended at 23:59 UTC on 12 August, and the organization stated the next day that it had received more than 1,600 primary applications, including over 1,100 of them which also had a secondary “replacement” string so that the applicant could use it if their first choice ended up in a contention set (ICANN, 13 August). ICANN said that the majority of the applications came in the last days of the 15-week period, which was the same pattern as in 2012.

The figure in question is about 300 less than that of the 2012 round, as stated in Domain Incite’s post-close analysis. At present, it is the only figure that ICANN has released. The details of the applicants, the strings, and the shape of the contention map are still sealed until Reveal Day—a date which ICANN has said will not be later than nine weeks after the deadline, with the exact date expected to be announced in mid-September and the reveal itself anticipated for October.

The fact that the industry is aware of this this week isn’t something that comes from ICANN but rather from the applicants who decided to speak.

The portfolio players went public first

The most significant disclosure by a large margin was made by Link Freedom Group, the company based in Malta that is centred on Nova Registry—the registry responsible for .link, which has more than 300,000 names under its management. In an announcement released on 13 August, the company stated that it had submitted applications for more than 300 strings, grouped into five categories: AI and tech (.llm, .agi, .quantum, .robot), commerce (.cart, .merch, .mall), internet culture (.lfg, .kek, .omg), crypto and Web3 (.block, .btc, .coin, .nft), and web infrastructure (.portal, .core, .internet, .url). Domain Incite states the number of confirmed applications as 316 strings and the initial outlay at about $71.7 million in application fees—setting a record for the largest bulk filing in the programme’s history. The company’s newly appointed CEO, Vaughn Liley, described the move in terms of ownership: “your place on the internet should actually be yours.”

Another smaller consortium appeared two days afterwards. Oinkadot—the company set up by Porkbun CEO Ray King and Dynadot CEO Todd Han, although it worked on its own separate from both registrars—told Domain Name Wire that it had applied for 25 strings at a cost of approximately $5.675 million: .anime, .bit, .bug, .cancel, .dine, .dragon, .ghost, .glitch, .hack, .heart, .king, .loop, .manga, .moon, .panda, .puff, .queen, .sign, .spice, .stack, .stay, .super, .weed, .wire and .zzz. King is not a stranger to this sort of thing; he had previously obtained .design, .wiki, .ink, .gay and .tattoo in the 2012 round before selling Top Level Design to GoDaddy.

The applicants who are focusing on single-string domains have also been discussing the matter. USA Made in America Inc., a company co-founded by .CLUB veteran Colin Campbell and Michele Van Tilborg, made the announcement on 14 August that it is applying for .factory, having raised a private offering of up to $10 million specifically to finance a potential auction. “Generic words that are strong can become valuable infrastructure,” said Campbell. Domain Incite also includes eight strings from Endpoint Domains, 13 from suffix.domains, and four from TLD1 LLC (.bewell, .etc, .joinus, .whatsnew).

If you do the math you will find that roughly 367 strings have so far been publicly claimed—that’s a quarter of the round.

The rule that changes everything regarding contention

The most important event following the close of a process is not the announcement of an applicant. According to the 2026 Applicant Guidebook, ICANN’s own procedures—‘up to and including an ICANN auction’—are the only allowed method of settling a contention set. Private auctions, side payments and arrangements involving joint ventures are now specifically forbidden, and the penalties for such actions can include disqualification from this and all future rounds, the loss of the evaluation fees, and possible legal proceedings (webhosting.today, 17 August).

The extent of that change is most clearly seen when compared with 2012, since in that year 234 strings were up for grabs but only 16 of them ended up in an ICANN auction; the others were settled privately, frequently to the advantage of the losers. This time, an unsuccessful applicant is leaving with having lost about $147,550 out of the $227,000 fee once the refund period is taken into account—this represents a loss rather than a negotiating tactic. This imbalance benefits those who are well-capitalised, which is the reason why Campbell had raised funds before Reveal Day and not after. It might also account for the 1,100 or so replacement strings: a low-cost way of protecting oneself against having to face a situation which can no longer be dealt with by paying money.

What is conspicuously absent

There are two gaps which stand out in the disclosures up to now.

The first point is regarding brands. Even though there had been extensive marketing beforehand aimed at corporate registrants, hardly any major brand has so far confirmed entering a dot-brand filing; according to Domain Incite, Salesforce is the only example, having come to light not through a press release but via an ICANN director’s conflict-of-interest disclosure. If the number of dot-brands is truly lower than it was in 2012, then the nature of this round changes from one of defensive registration to one involving speculative category investments.

The second point concerns internationalized domain names. Although ICANN has accepted applications in 27 non-Latin scripts and has made globalisation a main reason for the programme, no non-Latin string appears among the publicly announced bids. Domain Incite describes this as potentially “bad optics”. It will be up to Reveal Day to determine whether the sample presented is simply unrepresentative. The mechanism most likely to be enabling that diversity without it being obvious is ICANN’s Applicant Support Program, which was set up for about 40 to 45 fee-reduced applicants, mostly coming from non-profits and small businesses in developing economies.

What will happen next is that applications are only counted once payment has been made: the evaluation fee must be paid by the later of 19 August or seven days after the invoice is received (Domain Incite considers the practical cutoff to be 21 August), which is the reason why ICANN’s figure of “more than 1,600” will only become an exact number in the coming days. After that, administrative completeness checks are carried out, followed by Reveal Day, then the public comment and objection periods, contention resolution, and finally the formal evaluation.

Until October, everything else is disclosure by choice.