It Has Been Three Months Since .icu Launched, and We’re Rocking It!

It Has Been Three Months Since .icu Launched, and We're Rocking It! 1

Lars Jensen and Kevin Kopas at the .icu Launch Party during the ICANN GDD event in Vancouver, May 2018

.icu has now been live and available for end-user registration for 90 days. And we have some milestones to talk about!

  1. 64,000 Registrations – We now have over 64k registrations! This equates to more than 700 domains registered every day! We have set up www.InTheWild.icu for you to see how people are using these names. There are so many use cases for .icu domains and it is easy to see that the openness and accessibility of the extension are paying off. We love watching registrations come in to see what new and creative ideas people have for .icu domains.[visualizer id=”2797″]
  2. 50th Largest New Domain Extension – .icu is now the 50th largest domain extension on the planet! Sure there are older extensions that have millions of registrations however given the fact that .icu is just three months old this is a huge achievement! We check the site www.namestat.org which analyzes new create data for all registries and ranks them based on daily and overall numbers. Putting this number in perspective; there are over 1000 new domain extensions (not counting country code and legacy extensions).
  3. 82 Countries – .icu has registrations in 82 countries. We have always said that .icu is language agnostic making it the perfect global domain. People around the planet are noticing .icu, shorthand for I See You, and they get it. Folks are registering .icu because they like that it is short, accessible, and global.
  4. Live Sites – One of the most important metrics when evaluating a new domain extension’s success is the number of live sites or end users that have actually built something on their domain. It Has Been Three Months Since .icu Launched, and We're Rocking It! 2
    1. Key categories where we are seeing development:
      1. Cryptocurrencies – There are quite a few crypto blogs, news sites, and pricing platforms already launched. There is even a new crypto coin that is using a .icu name at www.lumo.icu. Additionally, there are blockchain startups starting use our extension, one is Vestige.icu, which is using blockchain to improve food traceability. To see more live .icu cryptocurrency sites visit
      2. Personal Sites – People are consolidating their social media profiles, building personal and professional profiles and showing off their talents with .icu names. Great examples of personal sites can be found at link.icu/HOdg8
      3. Internet Tools – One of our initial plans was to create a link shorter using a .icu name because of how short it is, recently an end user launched www.link.icu and we are using that for all of our links now! See more internet tools developed on .icu domains at link.icu/YL40C
    2. Another great indicator of live sites is the Alexa ranking. Amazon maintains a list of the top million sites in the world and right now there are 99 .icu domains on that list. That may seem like a small number but it puts .icu in the 92nd percentile of all other domain extensions with Alexa ranked sites.
  5. Trademark Clearing House Claims Period Ends – TMCH is a system mandated by ICANN that makes trademark holders aware when someone else registers a domain that contains one of their trademarks. For the first 90 days of a domain extensions launch registrars are required to notify the registrant that they are registering a domain and then notify the trademark holder that the name has been registered. It is important to note that this does not take any ownership away from the registrant if they maliciously register a trademarked term but more to notify the registrant that it could be an issue. As of 90 days this notification requirement is gone. If registrants register trademarked names they may still be open to legal repercussions however with the notification requirement gone it makes it a little easier to register names. For more info about TMCH visit ICANN’s page or the official TMCH site.
    1. An example of this? As the .icu registry we use the domain www.now.icu, this was a name that we needed for registry use. When we registered it through RRP Proxy the trademark owner was notified that we registered it. We aren’t using it in an infringing manner so are able to continue owning it.

We are excited that all of the above had been achieved in just 90 days of launch and we can’t wait to see where the next 90 days and beyond take us. In the next few months, you can find the .icu team at a few international events. We will be at Merge (Orlando, Florida), Cloud Data Expo (Singapore), and ICANN (Barcelona). If you are interested In learning more about .icu please reach out to us at sales[at]nic.icu and we would be more than happy to introduce you to the extension, go over our plans and see how we can work together.

Thanks for your support!

.icu Team

All stats, references, and links were accurate at the time of publishing.