.private
Is .private a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.private is contested: 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are Registered Agents and Endpoint Domains. Intercap named .private as a backup string for its .corporation application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup. Link Freedom Group named .private as a backup string for its .pal application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup.
Who is applying, and what they run today
None of the two runs a TLD today.
Will names sell?
A niche label for privacy-themed products, but the word cuts both ways: a public address that says 'private' can read as keep-out.
Last round the AI scored the 2012 strings blind to their fate. Strings it scored 60 or more hold a median 27,168 names today; those under 30, a median of 30. .private’s closest 2012 strings hold .secure 2, .safe 2 and .trust 56.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .secure, held 2 names, June 2026. .safe held 2; .trust held 56. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a bare English trust adjective where the string itself is the promise, so the namespace is only worth anything if the registry actually polices the claim rather than selling it to anyone.
Identical structure and buyer — an assurance adjective that no single company owns, sold to security/identity vendors who want the attribute, not a category, as their address.
Also an abstract virtue word whose value depends entirely on enforced eligibility or verification at registration, though it reads as an institutional noun rather than a property of the thing being named.
Where they meet elsewhere
Link Freedom Group and Intercap face each other in 31 contests this round, .private included.
- Link Freedom Group × Intercap
- Link Freedom Group × Endpoint Domains
- Intercap × Endpoint Domains
privacy-focused software and service vendors (VPNs, encrypted messaging and email, secure storage), plus discreet-commerce and personal-data products wanting a keyword suffix
What a .private domain is
.private is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our AI & tech category. 2 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .private domain extension real yet?
.private 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 .private domain?
You can’t yet. A .private 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 .private was .secure, delegated on 10 August 2016.
Is .private a real TLD?
Not yet. .private is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .private is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Link Freedom Group · now deactivated backupICANN
- Intercap · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now abandonedICANN
- 2 applicants · now confirmedICANN
- Registered Agents · first recordedRegistered Agents Inc
- Endpoint Domains · first recordedDomain Name Wire (Andrew Allemann)
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
The source’s 4 linesHide the lines
EDI2665T-T78776 · Endpoint Domains, Inc. · primary · contention set 2026-193 IRI2679T-T31250 · Intercap Registry Inc. · replacement string of .corporation · Deactivated LFGL2683T-T72603 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · replacement string of .pal · Deactivated RAI2657T-T86562 · Registered Agents Inc · primary · contention set 2026-193
“EDI2665T-T78776 · Endpoint Domains, Inc. · primary · contention set 2026-193 RAI2657T-T86562 · Registered Agents Inc · primary · contention set 2026-193”ICANN
“The company has also applied for six new generic top-level domains through ICANN's 2026 New gTLD Program”Registered Agents Inc
“The company says the applications are fully paid.”Domain Name Wire (Andrew Allemann)
“.private · Commerce · “Private by design.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: usable but limited (30-49). The privacy market is a real, growing commercial category over the next 5 years, and 'private' is a strong English keyword, so descriptive registrations like vpn.private or mail.private are plausible at volume; that keeps it out of the 10-29 vanity band. It stays below the 50-69 strong-niche band because the string carries a semantic contradiction as a public web identity: an address ending in .private can signal that the destination is closed, internal, or not for the visitor, which undermines primary-identity use for consumer-facing brands. By analogy (flagged as such), adjective and security-adjacent descriptor TLDs have tended to see thin primary-identity adoption and weak aftermarkets, with most value concentrated in a handful of exact-keyword pairings. A further qualitative caution, reasoned by analogy rather than asserted as fact: the word 'private' resembles labels plausibly used inside internal or non-public network naming, and strings with that character can face resolver blocking or enterprise-collision friction that dampens serious adoption, even with delegation assumed. Applicant context, stated neutrally: the applicant is Link Freedom Group, which filed more than 300 strings in the ICANN 2026 round and published its list ahead of Reveal Day (press-corroborated by Domain Name Wire, 2026-08-13); a large-portfolio applicant suggests a volume/registrar-channel strategy rather than a single-string flagship push, which tempers expectations of heavy category marketing. Its catalog files this string under Commerce with the tagline 'Private by design.' Main market uncertainty: whether privacy-sector brands treat the descriptor as a trust-enhancing badge or as a usability liability that confuses mainstream visitors; adoption by even a few visible privacy brands as primary identities would move this string toward the strong-niche band, while their absence leaves it a price-driven keyword registry.