The .com Monopoly: 1.36 Billion Hostnames, 42.7% of the Internet, and Why Nothing Else Comes Close
We analyzed 3.18 billion observed hostnames across 1,511 TLDs to measure .com's dominance — 1.36 billion hostnames, 42.7% of the namespace, one registry operator, zero competition. But only 57.2% of those .com hostnames return a live A record. What a government-granted monopoly means for infrastructure risk, pricing, and the future of the namespace. Refreshed June 2026 with first-party DNS resolution data.