Japan’s dot-brands work. Most run on one Tokyo company.
30 of Japan’s 43 dot-brands (70%) have a working page; 28 of America’s 155 (18%) do. 36 of the Japanese ones run on GMO Registry, and GMO is the listed contact on 56 of the 61 brand applications Japanese companies filed in 2026.
A snapshot of 31 October 2026. ICANN publishes the final list of 2026 applications on 17 November. Follow the 2026 round →
Japan’s dot-brands work. Most of America’s don’t.
Applying for a brand in 2026? Of the 378 dot-brands from 2012 still live, 118 hold nothing but their placeholder name. Which way yours goes splits sharply by country.
- a working page
- only redirects elsewhere
- names that don’t load
- empty
American companies own 65 of the 118 empty dot-brands, .netflix, .walmart and .fedex among them, and have shut down 50 more. Japanese companies have shut down 2.
Nine Japanese companies moved their main site onto the dot-brand
Type the company’s old address and you land on the dot-brand.
- toyota.co.jpglobal.toyota
- canon.comglobal.canon
- toshiba.co.jpglobal.toshiba
- sharp.co.jpcorporate.jp.sharp
- softbank.comgroup.softbank
- fujitsu.comglobal.fujitsu
- pioneer.co.jpjpn.pioneer
- hisamitsu.comglobal.hisamitsu
- gmo.co.jpgroup.gmo
Barclays, Sandvik and CERN did the same in Europe. Of the 139 American companies whose main site answered, none leads to the dot-brand.
36 of Japan’s 43 run on GMO Registry
- 36 run on GMO Registry
- 7 on other providers
GMO Registry, part of Tokyo’s GMO Internet Group, runs 36 of Japan’s 43 dot-brands. 26 of those have a working page. Only 2 dot-brands outside Japan run on it, both Korean.
Japanese companies are applying for more. American ones for fewer.
○ companies with a 2012 dot-brand · ● companies applying for brands in 2026
59 Japanese companies have applied for a brand in 2026, more than held one from 2012. GMO is the listed contact on 56 of their 61 applications. No other country’s applications are this concentrated on one firm.
86 American companies have applied, against 143 that held a 2012 dot-brand. Five of them filed a third of the 151 US applications: Google 20, Meta 12, Amazon 8, OpenAI 5, Bank of America 5 (50 in all).
Look up any dot-brand
Applying for a brand in 2026? See what your company, or a competitor, did with the last one.
- .bofa is empty: nothing but nic.bofa.
In 2026 the same group applied for .bankofamerica, .cashpro, .erica, .flagscape, .merrill.
- .canon has 73 names, and pages load on it, for example global.canon.
In 2026 the same group applied for .axis.
- .goo was removed on 6 February 2026. It never held more than 6 names.
In 2026 the same group applied for .docomo.
All 509 dot-brands from the 2012 round that went live, as of 29 October 2026.
One row per dot-brand: owner and country, launch date, status, names held, a page that loads, the main site that leads to it, who runs its nameservers, the date removed and what the owner’s group applied for in 2026. Names: for live dot-brands, names besides nic.; for removed ones, the most ICANN ever reported; for the five opened to the public, ICANN’s May 2026 count. Free to use; please credit Namedesk.
What it means for a 2026 applicant
The dot-brands that work have a job, usually the company’s main site. The empty ones were never given one. Decide what moves onto your brand before you pick the string.
Sources: ICANN gTLD registry list, registry agreement terminations and 2026 application filings; Namedesk research, 29–31 October 2026.