New.net: The Alternate Root Revolution That Wasn’t

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the domain name industry was still very much in its adolescence, driven by a potent mix of internet gold rush optimism, dissatisfaction with ICANN’s slow expansion of generic top-level domains (gTLDs), and a libertarian ethos that championed decentralization. Within this environment, a startup called New.net emerged in 2001 with an ambitious and controversial goal: to create an alternate domain name root system, bypassing the centralized domain name governance of ICANN and expanding the namespace far beyond the constrained options like .com, .net, and .org. To its backers, New.net promised freedom and innovation; to its critics, it represented chaos and confusion. Ultimately, it became a cautionary tale about the limits of technical workarounds and market acceptance in a tightly controlled internet infrastructure.

New.net was not the first to challenge ICANN’s monopoly over top-level domains. Groups such as AlterNIC and ORSC (Open Root Server Confederation) had previously tried to establish alternate roots, but these efforts were fragmented and largely failed to gain mainstream traction. What made New.net different was its robust funding—backed by Idealab, a prominent tech incubator—and its corporate polish. Launched by Idealab’s founder Bill Gross and led by former EarthLink president David Hernand, New.net came to market not as a fringe crusader, but as a slick, well-connected company with a plan to democratize domain names.

The core of New.net’s pitch was that the domain name system, as administered by ICANN, was artificially restricted. ICANN had been agonizingly slow in rolling out new TLDs, and entrepreneurs were growing impatient. New.net saw a gap in the market: why wait for permission to introduce new extensions when you could create them yourself? And so it did—rolling out dozens of new extensions, including .shop, .chat, .tech, .video, .travel, .law, and even more playful options like .mp3 and .xxx. These domains were not recognized by ICANN’s root servers, but New.net sidestepped the problem by employing a browser plugin that allowed users to resolve its domains, as well as by partnering with certain ISPs to integrate New.net domains directly into their DNS infrastructure.

This technical sleight of hand worked, to a point. Users who had installed the plugin or were on a compatible ISP could navigate to sites like www.coffee.shop or www.music.mp3. But everyone else—meaning the vast majority of internet users—would receive an error or be redirected to an informational page about New.net. The limitations were immediate and obvious. The value of a domain name lies in its universality; if a domain doesn’t work for all users, it is fundamentally broken. Web developers, marketers, and e-commerce firms had no interest in adopting an addressing scheme that most users couldn’t even access.

Despite this, New.net did find a small community of early adopters and investors willing to gamble on an alternate future. The company attracted significant attention in the media, appearing in tech columns and earning write-ups in outlets like Wired and CNET. There was a heady sense that New.net might just be able to force ICANN’s hand or, at the very least, shake up the complacency of the domain name status quo. Some saw the company’s efforts as a legitimate form of protest against a bureaucratic and slow-moving regulatory body. Others saw it as a cynical cash grab, flooding the market with speculative domain names that had no real-world utility.

Crucially, the plugin model proved to be an insurmountable barrier. For most users, the friction of having to install new software just to access certain websites was an immediate dealbreaker. New.net attempted to mitigate this by bundling its plugin with other software, a tactic that soon earned it criticism for “sneaky” installs reminiscent of adware. There were also questions about the security and privacy implications of routing DNS queries through a third-party provider with minimal oversight.

Technological challenges were only part of the story. Politically, New.net found itself isolated. ICANN refused to recognize any of its domains, and many internet standards organizations viewed alternate roots as dangerous and destabilizing. The Internet Architecture Board issued firm guidance warning against such systems, citing the potential for name collisions and general confusion in the namespace. Without institutional support, and with mounting opposition from browser developers and key infrastructure players, New.net’s dream of a parallel internet began to fade.

As the years passed, ICANN eventually did begin to expand the gTLD space, albeit slowly. The introduction of new domains like .info and .biz in the early 2000s, and later the vast expansion beginning in 2013 (including .shop, .tech, and many others), undermined New.net’s unique selling proposition. Domains that once seemed innovative under New.net were now being introduced under ICANN’s more legitimate banner, with universal resolvability and without the need for plugins or workaround ISPs.

By the end of the decade, New.net had effectively ceased to exist in any meaningful capacity. Its domains languished in obscurity, and its vision of a user-empowered alternate root was consigned to the margins of internet history. In 2014, domain registry operator Donuts acquired what was left of New.net, primarily for its intellectual property. The once-promising rebellion against ICANN’s hegemony was over.

In hindsight, New.net was both ahead of its time and deeply out of step with internet realities. It correctly identified the frustration with ICANN’s slow pace and the desire for more domain name variety. But it failed to understand that the domain name system is not a free market in the traditional sense. It is a shared global infrastructure that depends on consistency and predictability. Without universal resolution, no domain—no matter how creative—can become truly viable.

New.net’s story remains a fascinating chapter in the history of internet governance. It exemplifies the clash between idealism and pragmatism, between centralized authority and market-driven innovation. It also serves as a reminder that technological possibility alone is never enough to displace entrenched systems. Even in the digital realm, revolutions need more than code and capital—they need consensus.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the domain name industry was still very much in its adolescence, driven by a potent mix of internet gold rush optimism, dissatisfaction with ICANN’s slow expansion of generic top-level domains (gTLDs), and a libertarian ethos that championed decentralization. Within this environment, a startup called New.net emerged in 2001…