First off, I am not trying to talk anyone out of applying for a dotBrand TLD. Most consultants and providers in the domain name infrastructure world did a solid job helping brands that successfully obtained and operated their chosen TLDs in the last round. For RSPs and others in the domain industry ecosystem, I suggest that applicants who ask harder questions are usually better customers: they budget properly, launch with intent, and are more likely to use and sustain their dotBrand over time, rather than letting it quietly wither. My aim here is simply to surface a few under-discussed questions for teams that are seriously considering an application in this next round.
Most 2026 dotBrand conversations have hit the usual notes: trust, security, signalling, future-proofing, use cases, and “don’t miss the window.” All of that matters. But I suggest there are a few quieter questions that can materially change whether “apply” or “do not apply” is actually the right move for your organisation.
Below are four such questions worth adding to your internal decision checklist before anyone signs off on a dotBrand application.
1. What is our governance and exit plan, really?
A dotBrand is often framed as a forever asset. Strategy rarely is. Over a 10 to 20-plus-year horizon, few brands stay static in terms of structure, portfolio, or narrative.
- If you sell or spin off a business that leans heavily on the dotBrand, what happens to those domains when the TLD itself cannot move with the deal?
- If you rebrand, restructure, or simply decide the dotBrand is no longer core, what is the plan to avoid customer confusion, large-scale link rot, and uncomfortable questions about who retains which DNS and registry data?
If you cannot outline credible answers, you may not yet have a complete picture of the governance cost of owning a piece of the DNS, even if the business case and use cases look compelling on day one.
2. Have we thought through EBERO and transition scenarios, not just picked a “good” back end?
Most business cases stop at “pick a reputable registry service provider (RSP) and move on.” To date, no major RSP has failed or gone dark, and the industry’s track record is solid. That said, sound governance means planning for low probability, high-impact scenarios, just as you would for any critical infrastructure dependency.
ICANN’s Emergency Back End Registry Operator (EBERO) framework exists to ensure that, if a gTLD registry operator ever gets into serious trouble, an approved provider can step in to keep critical functions running and protect registrants. That gives comfort that your TLD will not simply go dark if the contracted operator fails to sustain key services or ends up in a serious compliance problem.
However, ICANN states that “EBERO providers are limited to providing critical functions as defined in gTLD registry agreements. For example, EBERO providers will not provide any additional services that a gTLD operator may have offered its customers, such as web hosting or network analytics.” So best to get a handle on how a potential successor may be able or willing to mirror your brand-specific features, integrations, reporting, or service model that you built around your chosen RSP.
The practical governance question for dotBrand owners is: if our TLD ever had to move into EBERO or through an ICANN-managed transition, what would that mean for our customer experience, internal tooling, and roadmap while things are being stabilised, and are we prepared to explain that scenario to leadership, even if it remains an unlikely event?
3. Are we ready for the unglamorous UX and data ops work?
dotBrand discussions rightly highlight clean URLs and trust signals, and some materials touch on SEO or customer experience impacts. What gets less airtime is the grind of making a dotBrand behave like a first-class citizen across all your systems and your partners’ systems.
- How many legacy B2B customers, suppliers, or regulators sit behind filters, gateways, or applications that still mistrust or mishandle unusual TLDs, causing email deliverability issues, blocked links, or noisy fraud alerts?
- Have you budgeted and staffed for the analytics and data ops work: updating tracking, search engine optimisation (SEO) and “answer engine” (AEO) optimisation (for assistants and AI results), data cleaning pipelines, and your security monitoring and automated response rules so that dotBrand domains are treated as trusted assets in your own environment, while look alike abuse of your brand in other TLDs is still detected and blocked?
If the working assumption is “our current tools will just handle it,” there’s a good chance you may be underestimating the friction, support overhead, and time to value curve of the dotBrand.
4. What footprint does this create in regulation, ESG, and data sovereignty?
Once you operate a TLD with your name on it, you are no longer just another domain holder. You are running visible internet infrastructure tied to your brand and, in some cases, to regulated activities or a stock ticker.
- In key markets, financial, telecom, or sector-specific regulators may reasonably expect additional clarity around resilience, operational control, and incident handling because you now run a piece of the DNS, even if it serves only your own domains.
- Where will DNS logs and related telemetry reside, who can access them, and how does this align with your data sovereignty posture, sanctions exposure, and ESG reporting requirements regarding digital operations and governance?
These are not arguments against a dotBrand. They are reasons to treat the decision as more than an up-sized domain registration or a one-off brand campaign.
If your 2026 dotBrand discussion focuses solely on trust, security, and marketing upside, you may be missing some of the most challenging and strategic questions. Adding these four to your decision checklist will make whatever answer you land on, “apply” or “do not apply,” a lot more defensible when the next leadership team inherits it.
PINKY BRAND 