.top is a

generic top-level domain Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of ev ...

, officially delegated in

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is a global multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization headquartered in the United States responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several dat ...

new gTLD program New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 ** "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, 1995 * "New" (Daya song), 2017 * "New" (No Doubt song), 1 ...

on August 4, 2014. The domain name extension .top is managed and operated by the .top registry (registry backend ZDNS) which belongs to Jiangsu Bangning Science & Technology Co., Ltd. in

Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, and can be registered by anyone since November 18, 2014 without special requirements. A second level domain under the

top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domain name, domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the DNS root zone, root zone of the nam ...

(TLD) .top can consist of digits, letters, hyphens and specific special characters while it can have a length of one up to (a maximum) of 63 characters. Like most other TLDs, it can be registered for a period of at least one year up to (a maximum) of 10 years in advance. The private registration (

WHOIS privacy WHOIS (pronounced as the phrase "who is") is a query and response protocol that is used for querying databases that store an Internet resource's registered users or assignees. These resources include domain names, IP address blocks and autonomous ...

) of .top domains is supported, as is the ability to register

internationalized domain names An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in non-Latin script or alphabet or in the Latin alphabet-based characters with diacriti ...

(IDNs), which include the character sets Arabic, Chinese (simplified and traditional), French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. On 16 July 2024 ICANN issued a Notice Of Breach to the registry for failing to respond to DNS abuse reports and failing to pay fees.

Development

* June 20, 2011, ICANN officially announced that the application for new gTLDs was to open in 2012. * April 11, 2012, the application was submitted online. On June 9, 2012, it appeared on the ICANN public list. * March 20, 2013, it passed initial evaluation. * March 20, 2014, the registry signed a contract with ICANN. * August 5, 2014, the domain entered the root zone of ICANN new gTLD. * October 15, 2014, it entered its

sunrise period The sunrise period of domain name registration is a special period during which trademark holders may preregister names that are the same or similar to their trademarks in order to avoid cybersquatting. This occurs prior to the general launch of th ...

. * November 18, 2014, .top domains could be registered openly. Registration volume exceeded 10,000 on the first day. * April 24, 2015, .top was put on record with Chinese national government department MIIT (

Ministry of Industry and Information Technology The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) is the sixth-ranked executive department of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. It is responsible for regulation and development of the postal service, Internet, wireles ...

). * January 2016, .top released its IDN domains, supporting Arabic, Chinese (traditional + simplified), French, German, Japanese, Russian and Spanish. The availability can be checked by .top whois.

Issues

As of 2023, .top domains are often used for malware and phishing, and the TLD is included in the list of those banned for some antimalware vendors such as Malwarebytes. .top is blocked by default by Snort rules.

References

External links

* {{Generic top-level domains

Top Top most commonly refers to: * Top, a basic term of orientation, distinguished from bottom, front, back, and sides * Spinning top, a ubiquitous traditional toy * Top (clothing), clothing designed to be worn over the torso * Mountain top, a moun ...

Internet properties established in 2014