---
id: "42dd3682-8190-456f-8146-345aa72cdf75"
kind: "link"
title: "Link Freedom Group swaps 19 proposed gTLD strings after reveal day"
language: "en"
section: "gtld"
date: "2026-10-08T12:36:52Z"
updated: "2026-10-08T12:36:52Z"
canonical: "https://tldlog.com/l/link-freedom-group-swaps-19-proposed-gtld-strings-reveal-day/"
origin: "master"
translations:
  es: "https://tldlog.com/es/l/link-freedom-group-cambia-19-cadenas-gtld-dia-revelacion/"
source:
  name: "Domain Name Wire"
  url: "https://domainnamewire.com/2026/10/08/link-freedom-group-chooses-it-final-tlds-swapping-19/"
  language: "en-US"
  date: "2026-10-08T12:01:37Z"
---

# Link Freedom Group swaps 19 proposed gTLD strings after reveal day

## in plain words

ICANN just revealed who applied for new website endings like .shop or .brand. One company, Link Freedom Group, quickly swapped 19 of its choices for different ones. It did this to avoid fighting other companies for the same popular names. Some of its backup choices did not work because other companies already wanted them too.

Less than a day after ICANN revealed the full list of new top-level domain applications, Link Freedom Group adjusted its strategy. The company, the second-largest applicant in the current round with 158 domains still pursued, swapped out 19 of its primary string choices for alternative ones it had also applied for.

Among the changes, Link Freedom Group dropped .brand, which had nine competing applicants, in favor of .industry. It also abandoned .max for .phi, .official for .vvv, .pod for .hard, and .firm for .enter, among other substitutions covering strings such as .therapy, .mart, .air, .merch, .sys, .cart, .factory, .invest, .mvp, .well, .wellness, .epic, .make and .wise.

Under ICANN’s rules, a company can move to a replacement string only if no other applicant chose that string as either a primary or replacement choice. This constraint blocked some of Link Freedom Group’s intended swaps; for instance, it wanted to replace one dropped string with .fart, but another applicant had already claimed .fart as a primary string, preventing the switch.

Domain Name Wire noted that knowledge of which strings Link Freedom Group abandoned could inform decisions by other applicants competing for the same contested domains.

Source: [Domain Name Wire](https://domainnamewire.com/2026/10/08/link-freedom-group-chooses-it-final-tlds-swapping-19/)