An emoji domain is a

domain name A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...

with one or more

emoji An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversat ...

in it, for example 😉..

Function

With the exception of the information emoji (), the trademark emoji () and the "m" emoji (), for an emoji to work as a domain name, it must be converted into so-called "

Punycode Punycode is a representation of Unicode with the limited ASCII character subset used for Internet hostnames. Using Punycode, host names containing Unicode characters are transcoded to a subset of ASCII consisting of letters, digits, and hyphens, wh ...

". Punycode is a character encoding method used for

internationalized domain name An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in non-latin script or alphabet, such as Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Mandarin, simplified ...

s (IDNs). This representation is used when registering domains containing special characters. The

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...

representation starts with the prefix "xn--" and is followed by the emoji-containing domain name encoded as Punycode, for example "xn--i-7iq" is "i❤" when converted back to Unicode. Each emoji has a unique Punycode representation. For example, " 😉" in an IDN is represented as "xn--n28h". There are several generators on the Internet that allow one to convert emoji to Punycode and back.

Availability and registration

, there are 11

top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

s for which emoji domain registration is possible: .cf, .fm,

.ga .ga is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Gabon. History Between 1998 and 2004 it was administered by the ''Office des Postes et Télécommunications de la République Gabonaise'' and then transferred to '' Gabon Telecom''. ''Gabon Tel ...

.gq .gq is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Equatorial Guinea. Freenom relaunched the TLD on October 1, 2014, and domains became available for free on January 1, 2015. The .gq registry allows the creation of emoji domain names. Histo ...

.kz .kz is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Kazakhstan. Registrations can be made directly at the second level or at the third level beneath categories which have specific restrictions, and are generally limited to Kazakhstan-r ...

.ml .ml is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Mali. History The domain was initially managed by Sotelma, a Malian telecommunications company. After Sotelma was privatised in 2009, the .ml zone was redelegated by IANA The ...

.st .st is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for São Tomé and Príncipe. The code is marketed worldwide as an abbreviation for various entities. Second-level domains Registrations are taken directly at the second level, but som ...

.tk .tk is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Tokelau, a territory of New Zealand in the South Pacific. It can be registered on the company Freenom. Overview Tokelau allows any individual to register domain names. Users and smal ...

.to .to is the Internet country code top-level domain ( ccTLD) of the island kingdom of Tonga. The government of Tonga sells domains in its ccTLD to any interested party. The .to ccTLD is administered by the Tonga Network Information Center (Tonic). ...

.uz .uz is the Internet country code top-level domain ( ccTLD) for Uzbekistan. Registry services were formerly operated by Euracom GmBH, but were later redelegated to UZINFOCOM. Registrations are taken directly at the second level, but the former ...

, and

.ws .ws is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Samoa. It is administered by SamoaNIC, for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Samoa. The .ws domain is an abbreviation for "Western Samoa", which was the nation' ...

; as well as 14

second-level domains In the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy, a second-level domain (SLD or 2LD) is a domain that is directly below a top-level domain (TLD). For example, in , is the second-level domain of the TLD. Second-level domains commonly refer to the organ ...

: .radio.am, .radio.fm, .co.il, .org.il, .com.kz, .org.kz, .biz.ua, .co.ua, .pp.ua, .co.uz, .com.uz, .com.ws, .net.ws, and .org.ws. The registration of an emoji domain can be more difficult than with normal domain names using only

characters, since it is sometimes not possible to enter emoji into the online registration forms of

domain name registrar A domain name registrar is a company that manages the reservation of Internet domain names. A domain name registrar must be accredited by a generic top-level domain (gTLD) registry or a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry. A registrar ...

s, and instead the

representation must be entered. The availability of an emoji domain can be verified by using an emoji domain search engine or by checking the

WHOIS WHOIS (pronounced as the phrase "who is") is a query and response protocol that is widely used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block or an autonomou ...

data of the punycoded domain.

History

At least four emoji domains were created on April 19, 200
☻.com
(xn--84h.com), ♨️.com (xn--j6h.com), ♨️.net (xn--j6h.net), and ☮️.com (xn--v4h.com). In 2005, ♌️.com (xn--q5h.com) was registered. Cabel Sasser of

Panic Panic is a sudden sensation of fear, which is so strong as to dominate or prevent reason and logical thinking, replacing it with overwhelming feelings of anxiety and frantic agitation consistent with an animalistic fight-or-flight reactio ...

created 💩.la (xn--ls8h.la), "The World's First Emoji Domain", on April 13, 2011. In February 2015,

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...

used a domain name containing a smiley emoji in an advertising campaign aimed at mobile users in Puerto Rico. A 2018 survey of the

TLD recorded approximately 25,000 registered emoji domains. On June 26, 2020, an online collective called It Is What It Is employed the 👁️👄👁️.fm (xn--mp8hai.fm) emoji domain to raise money for various social justice causes. The viral campaign, which relied on people's fear of missing out, caused thousands of Twitter users to post both the emoji domain and the phrase "It Is What It Is" in hopes of getting access to a rumored exclusive social network. In the end, It Is What It Is turned out to be a hoax designed to redirect attention to social issues; it ultimately raised over $200,000 and was featured in

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

Business Insider ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...

The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts. The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media' ...

, and

Gizmodo ''Gizmodo'' ( ) is a design, technology, science and science fiction website. It was originally launched as part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton, and runs on the Kinja platform. ''Gizmodo'' also includes the subsite ''io9'', whic ...

, among other publications.

Issues

Support among

s for emoji domains is limited. It has been speculated that emoji domains, especially on mobile devices, may be used to lure victims into

phishing Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent (e.g., spoofed, fake, or otherwise deceptive) message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious softwar ...

scams. Another problem is that emojis can look different depending on the operating system, applications, and fonts used. Not all browsers support emoji domains. On

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS ...

and

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and ...

, emoji display as Punycode in the address bar. In

Safari A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an importa ...

, on the other hand, emoji are visible in the address bar. Emoji domains are also visible in Google and Bing search results. There are also issues with using emoji domains in social media. While they are well supported on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

and

LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job se ...

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

and

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

have imposed serious restrictions. Support varies on messaging platforms. At present, only Punycode encoding is advised in e-mail addresses, e.g. "mail@xn--n28h.tld", as many MTAs and MUAs don't support

SMTPUTF8 The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. User-level email clients typica ...

which would allow SMTP commands with non-ASCII characters.

Emoji subdomains

Emoji subdomains are like normal subdomains, except that they begin with emoji. Emoji subdomains are possible with many popular TLDs, including .com. As with any other emoji domain, emoji subdomains have to be converted into Punycode and can then be used as regular subdomains. Thus, domain combinations like 👍.example.org (xn--yp8h.example.org) are possible. This allows a wide scope of emoji domains outside of ccTLDs.

References

{{Emoji_navbox Emoji Domain Name System Domain names