Global Cyber Alliance tests a voluntary anti-abuse badge for domain registries and registrars
in plain words
Companies that sell and run internet addresses are building a free badge to show they work hard to stop online abuse. A group led by the Global Cyber Alliance is testing it now. The badge could be ready for a meeting in Lisbon in March 2027.
Full summary
The Global Cyber Alliance and a working group A volunteer team chartered to study a policy issue and make recommendations. Full definition of working group of more than 30 organizations, including registry The central database and system of a top-level domain, or loosely the organization that runs it. Full definition of registry, registrar A company that registers domain names for customers with the registry. Full definition of registrar, industry associations, security companies and data providers, started the Domain Trust Badge project in July 2025. The group says the project was inspired by MANRS and builds on the earlier Domain Trust initiative. The badge is meant to be a voluntary, free, industry-led endorsement that lets registries and registrars show their commitment to effective anti-abuse practices.
The Global Cyber Alliance acts as secretariat, hosting meetings and structuring discussions around recent industry best-practice recommendations. The project aims to deliver practical results within one year. The alliance published a first description of the badge in June 2026, and a three-month engineering effort followed to build a pilot that could test the validation scheme under real-world conditions.
On October 6, the pilot was presented to the working group, together with mechanisms for collecting feedback. The developers say the badge is aimed at ICANN Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers The nonprofit that coordinates the global DNS and gTLD policy. Full definition of ICANN 88 in Lisbon in March 2027. The source describes a self-assessment tool in the Domain Trust Badge Portal that guides applicant An organization that has applied to ICANN to run a new gTLD. Full definition of applicant through 17 baseline requirements grouped into three actions: Policy, Coordination and Response.
Applicants would provide evidence of compliance, usually through a public link or a supporting document. A Resource Pool offers tools, templates and organizations that can help meet the requirements. The developers say they did not want the badge to become just another checklist, so they also planned a measurement of results, which the source introduces through the Domain Trust metric.