Speaker: Peter LaMantia, CEO of Authentic Web
Why Get Into the Brand TLD Industry
Peter:
When people ask me why a business or entrepreneur would get into this space, I point to the Brand Top‑Level Domain (TLD) opportunity.
To understand it, we have to compare the status quo with the future model—and frame that in terms of trust and security.
Today, enterprises typically own hundreds, sometimes thousands, of domains. Over the years, these have been added for new products, services, or acquisitions. The result is a sprawling set of domains managed across multiple registrars and DNS providers.
For IT teams, keeping control—managing change, maintaining security, and complying with DNS governance—is extremely difficult. Every domain creates new risk, and every zone file houses potential vulnerabilities. That fragmentation introduces trust issues and supply‑chain exposure.
A Brand TLD changes that. When you own your top‑level domain, you own the namespace itself. The key value it creates is trust—for customers, partners, and digital systems alike.
Why Trust Is the Core Value
With a Brand TLD, you can brand and authenticate anything:
- message.brand for a campaign
- product.brand or promotion.brand for marketing
- agent.company for partner or network programs
Customers immediately recognize and trust it.
If you look back, single domains have sold for millions—insurance.com for $35M, hotels.com for $11M—and both paid off through stronger customer engagement. Imagine extending that concept so every digital interaction exists under your own secure, recognized namespace.
Instead of renting space from third‑party TLDs or paying for defensive registrations, you build long‑term equity in your own digital home.
Security and Control
On the security side, a Brand TLD gives you a proprietary space. You can:
- Enforce HSTS preloading for HTTPS everywhere
- Automate DNSSEC management and key rotation
- Control SPF and DMARC records to stop phishing
- Maintain full change‑management and visibility across DNS
Everything is centralized—one provider, one control point, one ecosystem. That eliminates fragmented vendors and improves resilience.
You can even extend this to create trust networks across your supply chain, securing partners and distributed services under your brand.
ROI and Long‑Term Value
For large or mid‑sized enterprises, the ROI is clear. There’s an initial capital cost, but over time you save by:
- Reducing domain sprawl and brand‑protection costs
- Automating security and compliance tasks
- Lowering administrative overhead
Plus, you gain a new strategic capability: access to proprietary DNS data such as NXD data—non‑existent domain traffic.
That provides insight into how people interact with your brand online. Applied with AI, it can reveal behavior patterns and inform real‑time marketing strategies.
Owning the data gives you unique visibility no rented namespace can deliver.
The Future of DNS and AI
Digital growth in both Canada and the U.S. is being driven by AI innovation, but every AI system still depends on DNS.
Whatever technology emerges will sit on that foundation.
That’s what makes the Brand TLD space so timely—we’re still early in the internet’s evolution. Ten or twenty years from now, owning your namespace will be a baseline requirement for brand trust and digital differentiation.
Real Use Cases
Brands are already doing this successfully.
In the last ICANN round, HSBC saw a 30% jump in campaign engagement after using hsbc URLs instead of .com links.
The possibilities are endless—product microsites, customer portals, internal systems, partner networks, secure IoT endpoints (like device.brand).
For industries such as financial services or insurance, Brand TLDs can strengthen compliance and enable personalized, secure agent or reseller spaces (for example, agent.sunlife or dealer.audi).
Each name within your namespace becomes a verified extension of your brand—safe, controllable, and instantly trusted.
Countering Deepfakes and Digital Fraud
We’re entering a world where deepfakes—video, audio, email—are everywhere. A Brand TLD helps prove authenticity.
When users see .brand, they know it’s real. It’s your guaranteed trust signal.
Think of it as owning your security perimeter on the internet. You can’t spoof or fake that identity in a browser bar.
Data Ownership and AI Advantage
Owning your TLD also means owning all the DNS‑level data.
If you notice people typing insurance.yourbrand or mortgage.yourbrand into browsers, you’ll actually see that activity through NXD data—and could automatically create corresponding pages or services.
Combine that with AI and you can respond to real demand instantly, creating new market opportunities based on live user behavior.
That’s the kind of agility and personalization the future of digital identity demands.
Getting Started
There’s complexity in applying and operating a Brand TLD correctly, but the first step is leadership awareness.
Brands need executive sponsorship—CEO, CMO, or CISO engagement—to define the vision and commit to exploring the opportunity.
If you represent a brand, you can start by learning more through the Brand Registry Group (brandregistrygroup.org), an association that advocates for and educates about Brand TLDs. I’m on its board, and we meet regularly with global brands to share insights and developments.
Now is the time to decide whether to apply in ICANN’s April 2026 round.
It may be a decade or more before there’s another, so it’s crucial to make an informed decision—to apply, or at least to understand the opportunity clearly before choosing not to.
Closing Remarks
Owning your Brand TLD means owning your digital future.
It’s about trust, security, authenticity, and innovation—and it’s an opportunity that will define which brands lead in the next generation of the internet.
If you start preparing now, your organization can leverage this once‑in‑a‑decade opening to create a safer, smarter, and more authentic digital presence.
