Partner Spotlight: How .top Manages Abuse Amid Rapid Registration Growth

As one of the most widely registered generic TLDs in the world, .top has grown rapidly since its launch in 2014, attracting a broad and diverse registrant base across e-commerce, technology, finance and beyond. Like many high-volume open registries, managing abuse at scale has been one of the defining challenges of that growth.

We spoke with Sven Chen, CEO of the .top Registry, about the growing sophistication of domain abuse, the internal process that led to joining GlobalBlock, and what other registries should consider when evaluating a proactive approach to brand protection.

Please introduce the .top registry – how large is it, how is it structured, and who makes up the registrant base?

.top is ranked among the top ten global TLDs for registration volume and third in China’s domain name market. As of August 2026, it reached 6.27 million domains, with overseas markets accounting for 75.77% of registrants.

.top is a generic TLD with no industry restrictions. Users include enterprises engaged in e-commerce, technology, internet, finance, culture and other industries, as well as individuals such as self-media bloggers, freelance designers, programmers and individual entrepreneurs.

The .top Domain Registry is the operation and management organization of the .top international gTLD. It is operated and managed by Hong Kong Zhongze International Limited, and is responsible for the policy and technical operations of .top domains. Our registry comprises service, technical, after-sales, operation and maintenance, marketing, logistics support and other teams, to comprehensively ensure the continuous, stable and efficient operation of .top domains in the global market.

How has the registry developed since .top was launched? What important development points or milestones have shaped the current situation of .top?

The .top domain officially opened for registration on November 18, 2014. On the first day of launch, registrations met expected targets by exceeding 10,000 domains. Afterwards, the .top domain developed steadily, with daily registration volume increasing from more than 2,000 at the beginning to more than 10,000.

Along the way, the vigorous development of the .top domain could not have been achieved without the support of global partners. Among them, two milestones were particularly important:

• In 2016, the .top domain reached a strategic cooperation with Alibaba Cloud, a leading domain registrar in China. Alibaba Cloud placed the .top domain at the top of the domain registration page, greatly increasing its exposure and driving a substantial increase in registrations.
• In 2023, the .top domain successfully entered well-known overseas platform GoDaddy, further expanding its international market, and the number of global partners increased to nearly 200.

Domain abuse is a growing challenge across the industry. What was .top’s situation regarding abuse before joining GlobalBlock? What management measures were you taking at that time?

Before joining GlobalBlock, .top faced some challenges regarding domain abuse. In the face of these challenges, .top has always adopted a ‘zero tolerance’ attitude, and had already established a multi-level and highly efficient abusive domain handling mechanism. This includes:

1. Accepting and handling various types of abuse complaints through official website forms, dedicated email addresses, and cooperating official channels
2. Cooperation with authoritative domestic and overseas abuse handling platforms, to handle abusive domains analyzed and determined by them
3. Independently-developed abuse monitoring system to proactively discover abusive domains and arrange dedicated personnel to verify and handle them
4. Registrar coordination to report abuse situations to registrars each week, requiring them to strengthen supervision and management
5. International cooperation through participation in the work of anti-abuse organizations, such as joining the TN network in the Asia-Pacific region and signing mutual trust agreements with CSC, PWC, TWNIC and so on, to further improve abuse handling work.

What prompted you to decide to join GlobalBlock? What was the internal decision making process like?

There were a few key considerations for joining GlobalBlock. Firstly, we sought to strengthen brand protection capabilities. GlobalBlock is the world’s first unified domain blocking solution, which can prevent domains that exactly match brands or trademarks from being registered at the registry level. This provides brand owners with proactive protection rather than passive post-event response.
 

Secondly, to enhance the trust and reputation of the .top namespace. Participating in an industry-leading brand protection program such as GlobalBlock is a demonstration to the market, users and regulatory authorities of our firm commitment to building a secure and trustworthy domain ecosystem.
 

Further, GlobalBlock is rapidly expanding its coverage and joining it follows the trend of industry development, meeting the growing demand of brand owners for unified protection across domain extensions.
 

The decision took a rigorous evaluation process. Internally, we conducted a detailed evaluation of GlobalBlock’s technical solution, operating model and market value, and weighed its potential benefits for reducing abuse, enhancing brand image and long-term development. After recognizing that this was highly consistent with .top’s long-term strategy of becoming a ‘secure, trustworthy, innovative and open’ TLD, management ultimately made the decision to join.
 

After joining GlobalBlock, what changes have you observed in abuse within the .top namespace? Have you seen a measurable decline in malicious registrations or brand impersonation activities?

After joining GlobalBlock, there have been positive and measurable improvements in abuse within .top domains. This also coincides with comprehensive compliance reforms carried out by the registry.
 

Through its Domain Metrica tool, ICANN observed a clear decrease in abuse reports involving .top. This is also reflected in the registry’s own data. Since June 2026, the number of abusive domains handled by .top has already shown a clear decline of approximately 30%. With the help of new systems and processes, we have successfully handled issues involving more than 100,000 abusive domains, and the proactive monitoring system has handled more than 200,000 cases.

This data shows that joining services such as GlobalBlock, together with upgrades to internal systems, has had a significant positive effect on curbing malicious registrations and brand impersonation activities in .top domains.

Besides reducing abuse, has participation in GlobalBlock brought any other broader benefits to the registry?

Participation in GlobalBlock has brought multiple benefits to the .top registry far beyond abuse reduction:

• Enhanced registrant trust: by joining GlobalBlock, we have demonstrated to global users, brand owners and partners our firm commitment to building a secure online environment. This proactive behavior of protecting brand assets helps enhance users’ trust in the .top domain brand.
• New cooperation opportunities: GlobalBlock itself is a collaborative network composed of many registries and brand owners. Participating in it enables .top to establish connections with more brand owners and intellectual property service providers, thereby opening up new business cooperation and brand cooperation opportunities.
• Strengthened brand positioning: actively participating in global brand safety initiatives has strengthened .top’s positioning as an international and responsible TLD, and helps attract more high-quality users who value brand security.

For other gTLD or ccTLD registries considering joining GlobalBlock, what advice would you give them?

Joining GlobalBlock should be regarded as a long-term, strategic action for brand value and ecosystem security, rather than merely a means to solve immediate abuse problems. The trust enhancement and reputation improvement it brings have long-term value far exceeding the investment cost.
 

Evaluate whether GlobalBlock’s model is consistent with your registry’s development goals and brand positioning. For registries that wish to enhance their brand image and attract high-quality users and brand customers, this is a powerful tool.
 

In terms of the joining process, this involves coordination with the Brand Safety Alliance (BSA). Many registries around the world have already joined, indicating that the process is mature and standardized. After joining, you can expect to obtain:

• Significant reduction in abuse: through registry-level blocking, a large number of potential malicious registrations and brand abuse can be prevented at the source.
• Favor from brand owners: it provides brand owners with an efficient way to protect their trademarks, allowing them to avoid expensive defensive registrations across hundreds or thousands of domain extensions.
• Enhanced registry reputation and competitiveness: providing advanced brand protection services such as GlobalBlock can demonstrate to the market the registry’s commitment to building a secure and trustworthy online environment, attract more high-quality users and partners who value brand security, and thereby enhance overall reputation and market competitiveness.
• Enhanced user trust and loyalty: when registrars and end users find that their brands can receive more effective protection under domains operated by a certain registry, they will naturally have greater trust in and loyalty to that registry.
• New revenue opportunities: introducing GlobalBlock can open up new value-added service revenue sources for the registry, and drive the growth of the core domain registration business by attracting more high-value brand customers.

In summary, joining GlobalBlock is a key step taken by the .top Registry on the path of improving domain security, building user trust and shaping brand image. We encourage more industry colleagues to join this effort and jointly build a safer and more trustworthy internet domain ecosystem.