Fake Chinese applicant claimed 323 new TLD strings that never existed
in plain words
A mysterious company said it had applied to create hundreds of new website endings, like new versions of .com. But when ICANN Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers The nonprofit that coordinates the global DNS and gTLD policy. Full definition of ICANN published the real list of applicant An organization that has applied to ICANN to run a new gTLD. Full definition of applicant, the company wasn't on it, and its website disappeared. People think it may have been a hoax or a trick to get paid by real applicants.
Journey to the West Corporation set up a website in August claiming it had applied for 323 primary and replacement domain strings in ICANN's 2026 new top-level domain expansion round, many of them China-related, including numerous internationalized domain name A readable internet name made of labels separated by dots. Full definition of domain name (IDN Internationalized Domain Name A domain name written in local scripts or with accented letters. Full definition of IDN). The site said the venture was backed by Chinese domain investors and internet celebrities.
Several details raised suspicion. The company listed a mailing address matching China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which also houses the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the body overseeing Chinese domains. Domain Name Wire noted that a genuine government-linked venture would be unlikely to register its domain through Spaceship, a non-Chinese registrar A company that registers domain names for customers with the registry. Full definition of registrar, or to claim backing from private investors. The listed application strings also included domains that were already existing top-level domains, an unlikely error for a company supposedly investing tens of millions of dollars.
Someone linked to the website's email address commented on a Domain Name Wire article shortly after the site launched and separately asked about advertising on the publication, but never replied to further questions. No one in the domain industry contacted by Domain Name Wire could identify who was behind the company.
When ICANN published its full list of new gTLD A generic top-level domain added to the internet through ICANN's New gTLD Program. Full definition of new gTLD applicants, Journey to the West Corporation did not appear anywhere on it, and its promotional website has since gone offline. This resolves conflicts for applicants whose intended strings had seemingly overlapped with the fake company's claimed applications.
Domain Name Wire speculated on two possible motives: that it was a prank wasting observers' time, or an attempt to pressure genuine applicants into paying to make a supposed competing application disappear, though it noted a payoff seems unlikely without verification.