Reserving .INTERNAL for Private-Use Applications

ICANN finally allocates the .internal TLD for private use after discussions first started in 2020. This means we can now use .internal domains on a private network without fear of it being up for grabs and resolvable to something else in the future. To prevent this previously you could purchase a domain name and use that or subdomains of that for internal use so you always control what is resolves to.

Resolved (2024.07.29.06), the Board reserves .INTERNAL from delegation in the DNS root zone permanently to provide for its use in private-use applications. The Board recommends that efforts be undertaken to raise awareness of its reservation for this purpose through the organization's technical outreach.

Between 2020 and now, ICANN opened the proposal for public comments which was summarised in PDF form. ICANN received responses from various groups like various ICANN committees, Amazon and Google. The majority of valid responses were in favour of using .internal with the others in support of the idea but asking for a shorter TLD.