·10 min read
.info Promised Information, Delivered Spam: 7.6M Peak, Identity Digital, and a Reputation That Never Recovered
ICANN's 2001 "informational" gTLD peaked at 7.63M (Oct 2012), troughed near 3.96M (Dec 2024), rebounded to ~5.56M on promo churn—and Interisle lists .INFO in the top phishing cohort five years running. Afilias → Donuts → Identity Digital; wholesale $21 → $23.50 Jan 2027—and why the old guide's Mad Lib notables and AIO boilerplate failed audit.