ICANN will reserve the ".internal" top-level domain name for private networks

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a not-for-profit entity that oversees the Domain Name System (DNS) and develops policy for new generic top-level domains (TLDs). The US-based organization is now proposing a new domain name string for private use.

In September 2020, ICANN began discussions on a new TLD string intended for private use. Four years later, the proposal is in its final stages, and ICANN will seek public comment before adopting the new policy. The .INTERNAL" domain name is likely to become the new standard definition of private networks within the DNS system.

The new domain serves the same purpose as the 192.168.x.xIPv4 block, which is used to identify internal network resources without relying on the DNS system. In 2020, ICANN discovered that many enterprises were using "temporary" top-level domain solutions (such as .lan, .dlink, etc.) that were not in the DNS root zone.

ICANN believes that this use of custom domain names is uncoordinated and will "cause harm" to Internet users. It places a burden on DNS servers as they handle queries for non-standard domain names that are only used internally. Since DNS cannot prevent internal use of ad hoc TLDs, ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) recommended adopting a new domain explicitly reserved for internal networks.

The negotiation process resulted in 35 different candidate strings, which were checked to avoid conflicts with existing top-level domain names. The new private domain name should be "easy to remember and meaningful" and suitable for use in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. After extensive discussions, SSAC rejected nearly all candidate domain names as inappropriate or meaningless.

Ultimately, the committee narrowed down the candidate domain names to two: .PRIVATE and .INTERNAL. According to ICANN, the .PRIVATE domain name was rejected because of the unintended privacy implications it could have. Furthermore, .PRIVATE may have conflicting meanings in different evaluation languages.

Internet stakeholders, including large companies, system administrators and private users, can now submit comments to ICANN ahead of the adoption of the new .INTERNAL domain name in April 2024. While ICANN cannot force private entities to avoid using their own namespace conventions, the organization emphasizes that using standard subdomains of registered public domain names remains a best practice for naming internal resources.