.brands and cybersecurity: the true silent revolution

What lies behind the limited use of many dot brand TLDs

In 2025, 7 .brand TLDs were revoked and only 11% of dot brands as a whole had more than 100 domain names registered. While these figures may be surprising, they do come with an explanation.

The companies with their own dot brand up until now embarked on the adventure in 2012, when ICANN, the Internet governance body, first made them available. This allowed businesses to transform their brand into an Internet domain and thereby become a registry operator like organisations such as Verisign, which notably manages the .com TLD, and Afnic, the registry operator for the .fr TLD. In 2012 this was no mean feat, and certainly not part of most companies’ core business activities. And although service providers operating in the sector were able to propose tailored solutions to simplify their management of this role of registry operator, these companies were true pioneers.

Many companies consequently jumped on the bandwagon without paying any real attention to the benefits that could be reaped, and above all for largely defensive purposes:

“registering a .brand TLD to prevent another holder of an equivalent brand doing so”.

And sometimes this pattern was repeated for several brands. Others that made the decision to register their own TLD arrived too late to the party, once the application period had closed.

If we look at the 2025 figures, we can see that the .brand TLDs revoked were mainly associated with companies that applied for several dot brands. The distributor Kerry Trading, for example, abandoned .kerrylogistics but still has five other domains. The financial services company Prudential Financial abandoned .pramerica, but retained its two other TLDs. And other companies including Bentley Motors and Lancaster abandoned their TLDs pursuant to internal decisions.

Our experience in this regard tends towards a type of internal inertia, an absence of real DNS governance in some organisations or product vision, and the isolation of marketing, IT and legal departments which all need to be aware of this type of project and perceived costs compared to actual value, which can all lead to these situations. After all, given the number of names currently registered under .brand TLDs, a low volume of names is not indicative of either the success or failure of a project. Dot brands are closed spaces dedicated to the holder organisation. High quantities of names are therefore not the goal.  .brand TLDs optimise value in terms of domain names, not the number of names.

A changing technological and geopolitical context

Many companies consequently jumped on the bandwagon without paying any real attention to the benefits that could be reaped, and above all for largely defensive purposes: “registering a .brand TLD to prevent another holder of an equivalent brand doing so”. And sometimes this pattern was repeated for several brands. Others that made the decision to register their own TLD arrived too late to the party, once the application period had closed.

If we look at the 2025 figures, we can see that the .brand TLDs revoked were mainly associated with companies that applied for several dot brands. The distributor Kerry Trading, for example, abandoned .kerrylogistics but still has five other domains. The financial services company Prudential Financial abandoned .pramerica, but retained its two other TLDs. And other companies including Bentley Motors and Lancaster abandoned their TLDs pursuant to internal decisions. Our experience in this regard tends towards a type of internal inertia, an absence of real DNS governance in some organisations or product vision, and the isolation of marketing, IT and legal departments which all need to be aware of this type of project and perceived costs compared to actual value, which can all lead to these situations. After all, given the number of names currently registered under .brand TLDs, a low volume of names is not indicative of either the success or failure of a project. Dot brands are closed spaces dedicated to the holder organisation. High quantities of names are therefore not the goal.  .brand TLDs optimise value in terms of domain names, not the number of names.

Benefits difficult to quantify in terms of ROI in the strict sense of the term

A dot brand offers key benefits from this perspective.

For companies, they guarantee something rare: complete control over their naming space, transforming the DNS into a proprietary territory rather than simply an address leased to a third party. Registering a .brand TLD is equivalent to purchasing a piece of the DNS. This control reduces reliance on commercial registries and offers concrete benefits in terms of security: a smaller attack surface, better service authentication, and greater user confidence.

With regard to data access, as a dot brand is exclusively administered by the brand itself, the latter has complete visibility over the registrations, DNS requests and activity surrounding its TLD. Which means that it not only controls all of the data generated by its digital ecosystem, but it can also identify sources of interest in its .brand TLD, be it potential partners, subsidiaries, competitors, international markets, or unauthorised access attempts. Whereas a third-party registry stores the majority of registration data and requests, a .brand TLD provides direct control, more effective data exploitation and unique strategic analysis capabilities in terms of brand appeal and perception in the digital world.

In many ways, a dot brand can be compared to SSL certificates in the early days of the web: an infrastructure investment that goes largely unseen by the general public, but which is essential to building digital trust.

If they enlist the right help, an organisation embarking on a .brand TLD project can establish an operational sovereignty strategy, have their application approved, protect their operations and maximise the use of data, while avoiding the pitfalls encountered by many dot brand pioneers.