.api

Mission and Purpose: Charleston Road Registry Inc. dba Google Registry (Charleston Road Registry), a company wholly owned by Google, provides registry services to the public. Google is a technology leader focused on improving how millions of users connect with information. In line with Google’s mission, we make information accessible by extending the utility of the Domain Name System while enhancing the performance, security, and stability of the Internet. The primary purpose of the applied-for gTLD is to provide a dedicated, recognizable, and trusted space where registrants can enact second-level domains that relate to Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and software integrations. This applied-for gTLD provides registrants ability to categorize their online locations, securely manage their digital presence, and offer a highly recognized web space to the general Internet population. Intended Registrants and Users: Charleston Road Registry intends to operate the applied-for gTLD as an open registry. The ultimate goal is to allow various businesses and individuals to comprehensively manage their domain space for API-related offerings. Registration will be widely accessible, and any interested parties will be authorized to register domains in accordance with standard, open registry policies. The intended registrants include software engineers, enterprise IT departments, technology startups, and platform developers. The intended users of the applied-for gTLD are the general Internet public, software creators, and consumers who will navigate to these domains to securely access API documentation, integration tools, web services, and developer portals. Related Activities: The applied-for gTLD will provide registrants with the ability to customize their domain names to signal to Internet users the precise nature of their websites. The specialization goal of the applied-for gTLD is to extend the API technology identity to each dedicated second-level domain space. This provides a centralized mechanism by which individuals and companies can easily link their diverse initiatives, allowing them to actively manage their digital presence and coordinate the introduction of web spaces for software integration services. Launching the applied-for gTLD will generate increased competition in the online marketplace by adding incremental availability to the domain pool. The applied-for gTLD provides an authoritative environment for the provision of targeted content. The applied-for gTLD will spur further innovation by providing an accelerated platform for the seamless introduction of new offerings and enhanced branding. Sustainability Over Time: Charleston Road Registry will strive to provide the highest level of user experience through operational stability, security, and performance for the applied-for gTLD. This purpose is highly sustainable over time due to Google's long-term corporate standing, continuous investment, and robust technical infrastructure. We are uniquely positioned to provide this experience given our relationship with Google; Google invests heavily in IT infrastructure and maintains a record of excellence in operations. Google runs one of the largest DNS system globally, maintains industry-leading uptime, and offers enterprise services on which governments depend. Google keeps speed, reliability and scale in mind with each new service, ensuring ongoing stability for the registry's lifetime. Google is well-financed and committed to maintaining Charleston Road Registry, ensuring operation of the TLD remains viable, relevant, and fully funded.

The .api gTLD will provide a namespace for organizations offering APIs, developer tools, and integration services. Registrations will be open to anyone. Intended registrants include SaaS companies offering or using APIs, developer platforms, integration middleware providers, open data initiatives, and any business that offers programmatic access to its services. This purpose is sustainable because APIs are foundational infrastructure for modern software development and their usage grows with the expansion of cloud services, mobile applications, and interconnected systems.

Elegant Leader Limited, is applying for .API as a dedicated namespace associated with Artificial Intelligence and associated software development. The mission and purpose of the .API gTLD are to: (1) provide a semantically clear namespace in which developers, enterprises and service providers can publish, and Internet users can identify and reach, authentic agents and their endpoints and documentation; (2) improve navigation through short, memorable Internet addresses; (3) raise trust by applying uniform registry policies and security requirements, including DNSSEC, rights protection mechanisms and abuse prevention and mitigation, to reduce impersonation, phishing, fraud and malware; and (4) support the growth of the agent ecosystem through a platform able to accommodate new services and markets. Intended registrants are developers, enterprises, artificial intelligence companies, research institutions and other organizations that build. Registration will be open through ICANN-accredited registrars, subject to the Elegant Leader Limited's registration and acceptable use policies. Elegant Leader Limited is part of the Alibaba Group of companies, and Artificial Intelligence is a priority for the future growth and success of Alibaba Group. Therefore there is a long term commitment to this TLD and ensures is sustainable, safe, and secure future operation.

The mission of .API is to provide a namespace associated with the concept of api as an application programming interface that enables software applications or systems to communicate with one another. The .API gTLD is intended to serve a broad range of registrants and users, including individuals, businesses, organizations, communities, projects, and other entities that identify with, relate to, or wish to be associated with the concept represented by the applied-for string. The purpose of .API is to enable registrants to establish online identities using domain names that correspond to this concept. To achieve this purpose, Heir Superiority, LLC will make .API available for registration through registrars and other appropriate distribution channels; maintain a secure, stable, and reliable registry infrastructure; implement registration and operational policies that support the availability, security, and integrity of the namespace; and provide ongoing administration of the gTLD to enable registrants to register and use domain names within the namespace. The purpose of .API is sustainable over time because application programming interfaces that enable software applications and systems to communicate will continue to play a fundamental and enduring role in technology. As technology evolves, organizations and individuals will continue to establish online identities associated with the applied-for string.

The mission and purpose of .api is to give developers, companies, and platform providers a dedicated namespace for publishing, documenting, and accessing application programming interfaces. Registration under .api signals a machine-to-machine integration point, distinguishing programmatic endpoints and developer resources from human-facing web content within the same organization or brand. The applicant will drive adoption of .api through public relations outreach targeting developer and technology media, direct marketing campaigns to software companies and engineering teams, partnership development with API platforms, developer tool providers, and technology companies to secure anchor registrants, and coordinated promotion through the registrar channel to extend distribution and drive registration volume among the developer community. This purpose is sustainable over time because it is rooted in how software gets built rather than in any particular technology cycle. Modern systems are assembled by connecting discrete, independently maintained services rather than as single monoliths, and that architectural pattern has held across successive shifts in languages, frameworks, and platforms. As long as software continues to be composed this way, there is a persistent need for a recognizable namespace marking programmatic interfaces, independent of which specific technologies dominate at any given time.

Link Freedom Group (LFG) aspires to become a best-in-class, vertically integrated domain name registration authority, see linkfreedomgroup.link. This TLD is part of a carefully curated portfolio of strings that LFG intends to pursue in ICANN’s 2026 New gTLD Program. In assembling this portfolio, LFG focused on securing meaningful, memorable, and commercially compelling strings that resonate strongly with end users and offer long-term growth potential. Over the past four years, LFG (Nova Registry) has successfully grown its flagship TLD, .LINK, from approximately 125,000 to more than 300,000 domains under management. This growth has been driven by innovative distribution strategies, the expansion of registrar partnerships, and a granular pricing model that has enabled .LINK to remain competitively priced while avoiding the significant fee increases implemented by some other registry operators. LFG’s experience in the domain name industry has reinforced one of the key lessons from the 2012 application round: long-term sustainability is strengthened through portfolio diversification. By spreading operational costs and mitigating revenue fluctuations across multiple TLDs, LFG is better positioned to withstand market volatility and invest in continued growth. Accordingly, LFG believes that even obtaining a subset of the TLDs for which it has applied will establish a diversified portfolio capable of supporting long-term economic stability, operational resilience, and sustainable growth.

Open Development Cambodia (ODC) is an NGO initiated to support the open data movement understanding that data collected for the public good should be made publicly available, freely available, and technically digestible through APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) so that any human and systems can both use and disseminate that data to facilitate research and communication between the public, private companies, civil society, and government institutions. In alignment with ODC’s vision, the .api gTLD is intended to be an open general-purpose domain. As a gTLD, the .api domain intends to be open for registration from any individual, programmer, organization, community group, AI system, system administrators, network or initiative. We believe that .api would be a domain of choice for software and systems developers who are developing systems that interact with other systems, of which the emergence of AI Agents will increasingly become part of. While an important motivation for selecting the string “API” is based on its meaning as Application Programming Interface in the technical and Internet community, the use of .api in other creative ways (e.g. for Academic Performance Indicator or Asian & Pacific Islanders) should not cause any security or stability concerns to the DNS. It is unlikely that an average user would confer undue trust to a .api domain any differently than for example a .net domain. In terms of Name Collision risk, there is no known widespread usage of systems or applications that use the “.api” TLD for internal or private usage. In accordance with the Impact Based High-risk String Classification Model, .api would not cause impact on public safety nor public confidence, not only because there are no known system that uses .api as a private TLD, it is unlikely to be chosen as one because it would not have served the purpose like .home or .corp would have, because the intent for setting up those private names are that they meant something to users who are less technically oriented (hence “.api” is unlikely to be chosen because it is not something that non-technical users would relate to, and technical users would simply have used .local).

1. Mission and Purpose of the Applied-for gTLD The .api namespace gives technology organizations a precise, instantly recognizable web address for the place where their programmatic interfaces live. Where a developer once had to guess between scattered subdomains and documentation paths, a name on .api signals exactly what sits behind it: the gateway through which software talks to software. The purpose is to give companies that publish interfaces a clear and memorable online presence for their developer-facing resources, making it easier for partners and builders to find, understand, and trust where to integrate. A name such as a company's developer portal, reference documentation, or sandbox environment on .api turns a technical resource into a recognizable destination. For the organizations that publish them, interfaces are increasingly the product itself, the connective tissue of digital commerce, financial services, logistics, and communication. .api lets these organizations present that work under a dedicated identity rather than burying it within a general corporate domain. For the developers who consume them, the namespace offers a consistent, predictable convention: a clearer signal of where to look and what to expect. The result is a naming layer purpose-built for the audience that lives closest to integration, helping technical work stand out and be found online. Intended Registrants: Software companies, platform providers, cloud and infrastructure vendors, fintech and payments firms, developer tool makers, and enterprises that publish or document programmatic interfaces. Related Activities Supporting the Purpose: • Awareness-building among developer relations and platform teams • Registrar distribution targeting technical and enterprise buyers • Registrant education on consistent naming for interface documentation and developer portals • Community outreach through developer conferences and open-source ecosystems • Responsible registry operations 2. Sustainability of the Purpose Over Time The enduring relevance of .api rests on industry infrastructure: the programmatic interface has become a foundational building block of how modern software is assembled. Few systems today are built entirely in isolation; payments, mapping, identity, messaging, and data services are routinely composed from interfaces published by separate providers. This compositional approach to building software is not a passing trend but a structural shift in how digital products are made, and it continues to deepen as more functions are delivered as discrete, consumable services. Because interfaces are the connective infrastructure beneath this model, the concept represented by .api remains relevant regardless of which specific languages, frameworks, or vendors dominate at a given moment. The underlying need (one system reliably reaching another through a defined contract) persists across generations of technology. As long as organizations build products by combining capabilities from multiple sources, there will be a durable need to publish, document, and locate the interfaces that make those connections possible. This positions .api around a stable category rather than a momentary one. New providers continually enter the market with interfaces to expose, and established providers expand and version theirs, generating ongoing demand for clear, dedicated naming.

The mission of .api is to provide a dedicated namespace for developers, software platforms, integrations, technical documentation, tools and API-related services.

1. Mission and purpose. This gTLD will be operated as an open, unrestricted generic top-level domain. Its purpose is to expand naming choice in the DNS by making this term available at the top level for any lawful use chosen by the registrant. Registrations will be available to all registrants on a first-come, first-served basis through ICANN-accredited registrars, subject only to the Registry Agreement, ICANN Consensus Policies, and applicable law. The applicant will not operate this gTLD on an exclusive basis. 2. Intended registrants and users. Intended registrants are individuals, businesses, and other organizations worldwide seeking a short, meaningful domain name. There are no eligibility or name selection restrictions beyond those required by the Registry Agreement, ICANN Consensus Policies, and applicable law. Intended users are internet users worldwide who access domain names registered in this gTLD. 3. Related activities. The applicant is an established registry operator under contract with ICANN for 35 gTLDs, including .xyz. It has in place a qualified Registry Service Provider, distribution agreements with ICANN-accredited registrars across multiple regions, and all required rights protection mechanisms and DNS abuse mitigation practices. For this gTLD the applicant will onboard the TLD to its existing registry platform, conduct a Sunrise Period and Trademark Claims Period, launch General Availability through its registrar channel, and maintain ongoing registrar enablement, abuse monitoring, and compliance reporting. 4. Sustainability. Operation is funded by recurring registration and renewal revenue and does not depend on any single registrant, sector, or campaign. This gTLD will run on the applicant's existing shared registry infrastructure, so incremental operating cost is low and no minimum registration volume is required for viability. The applicant has operated gTLDs continuously since 2014.