.intel
Is .intel a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.intel is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 8 October 2026. It is Starlight (Namecheap).
A real word for the security-intelligence crowd, but a famous chip brand's shadow keeps it a niche, second-choice address.
cybersecurity and threat-intelligence vendors, OSINT researchers, and business-intelligence or analytics products wanting a literal label (threat.intel-style names), plus defense/intel-community adjacent consultancies
The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a large enterprise-technology corporation putting its whole corporate identity on a string that is simultaneously an ordinary English noun, so the application is as much about fencing off a generic word as about running a namespace.
Same shape — a famous tech manufacturer claiming a plain dictionary word as its .brand, where the trademark is strong enough that no one else can credibly bid for the generic meaning.
Identical structure outside tech: a single company taking exclusive control of a common word it happens to trade under, with the same defensive-lockup rationale and the same weak organic demand for actual second-level registrations.
What a .intel domain is
.intel is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under AI & tech. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .intel domain extension real yet?
.intel is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. It is a string applicants have put forward in the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, the process that decides whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .intel domain?
You can’t yet. A .intel name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .intel was .oracle, delegated on 3 March 2015.
Is .intel a real TLD?
Not yet. .intel is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .intel is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Starlight (Namecheap) · noteDomain Name Wire
- Starlight (Namecheap) · first recordedICANN
“FEI2676T-T21331 · Fomalhaut Exploration, Inc. · primary”ICANN
“For us, moving into the registry side is a natural extension of what we have been building.”Domain Name Wire
- I place .intel in the 30-49 band (usable but limited). 'Intel' is a genuine generic noun with a defined professional market — threat intelligence, OSINT, business intelligence — so demand should exceed the vanity/joke band below: descriptive registrations like threat.intel or market.intel have obvious appeal to security and analytics firms. It does not reach the 50-69 band because the string is globally dominated by association with a major semiconductor brand, which by analogy with other brand-shadowed generics chills serious primary-identity use; and the best-fit niche (cyber threat intel) already defaults to .com/.io/.ai, as analogous security-themed TLDs (e.g. .security, .cyber — outcomes inferred from analogy, exact volumes unknown) have shown mostly defensive or secondary-domain uptake rather than primary identities. The applicant, Starlight Registry (a Namecheap registry venture applying for 40 strings in the 2026 round), brings registrar distribution, which plausibly helps volume but not brand-signal strength. Main market uncertainty: whether the threat-intelligence sector treats .intel as a credible primary identity or avoids it for fear of brand confusion and enforcement pressure on commercial registrants.