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The Internet Runs on Cats and Porn. It’s About to Get Cattier and Pornier

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The Internet Runs on Cats and Porn. It’s About to Get Cattier and Pornier

This year, anyone can apply for a killer top-level domain on the internet. I’m talking about the part to the right of the URL dot, like .com or .org. Over a thousand of these already exist: .app for apps, .shop for shopping, .dev for software developers, .nyc for New Yorkers, .porn for porn, .horse for—who knows.

And in 2026, for the first time since 2012, anyone can invent a new .word (even, literally, .word).

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, is the governance body that makes the rules for domain names and IP addresses. These rules are ostensibly the kind of boring technical stuff that most people don’t know about, because the internet “just works.” You type in nike.com, you see the swoosh. But the rules solve hard problems that thousands of humans spend thousands of hours arguing over. When Ukraine asked ICANN in 2022 to shut down all traffic to Russian top-level domains, like .ru, ICANN declined. No censorship is one of the rules: Ensure the stability and security of the internet, but don’t police content.

It’s June, and I’m in Seville, Spain, for ICANN86, to learn about top-level domains and the people who make them. The 86 means it’s ICANN’s 86th IRL meeting since ICANN01 in Singapore, in 1999, just after ICANN was created to transition key internet infrastructure away from US control and toward independent management. The US government is here too—at least four representatives from the Department of Commerce—along with 1,000-plus people from 100-plus countries.


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