Understanding evolution and adoption of Top-level Domain names

The Domain Name System (DNS) is used in the Internet to map Fully Qualified Domain Names to IP addresses. As the Internet continuously grows, there have been challenges in keeping up with the demands on the DNS service. Recently, ICANN announced the introduction of new generic Top-level Domains (gTLDs). Using packet traces collected from a large edge network, we analyze the usage of TLDs between 2008 and 2015. We observe changes in usage of TLDs, and analyze the adoption of the new gTLDs announced by ICANN. We find that while there were no changes in the appearance of most frequently used TLDs, the presence of the new gTLDs in the datasets is growing. The number of different late new gTLDs appearing also doubled or tripled each year, implying that more and more people are starting to use these new gTLDs.