What Was the .adac Domain? A Terminated Brand TLD
The .adac domain was a brand TLD for Germany's ADAC motoring club that ICANN terminated in 2022. Learn its history, why it ended, and what to register instead.
- tld
The .adac domain was a brand top-level domain created for ADAC e.V. (Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club), Germany's largest automobile and motoring club. It no longer exists: ICANN removed .adac from the DNS root zone in 2022, so the extension no longer resolves and cannot be registered.
If you searched for the ".adac domain," this page explains what it was, why it disappeared, and what the story of a terminated dot-brand means for anyone choosing a domain today.
.adac at a glance
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| TLD type | Brand new gTLD (closed / "dot-brand") |
| Registry operator | ADAC e.V. (Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club) — agreement now terminated |
| Year delegated | 2015 |
| Year terminated | 2022 (removed from the root zone) |
| Current status | Terminated — not present in the DNS root zone |
| Registration restrictions | Not available — the TLD no longer exists |
What was .adac?
.adac was a closed brand gTLD: a top-level domain reserved for a single organization's exclusive use. The string is the acronym of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club e.V., Germany's largest automobile and motoring club. Only ADAC could ever hold names under the extension.
Like other dot-brands, .adac was never open to the public. You can confirm its status on the authoritative IANA root-zone record for .adac, which now shows the domain is not present in the root zone.
History of .adac
.adac was delegated on 20 November 2015 as part of ICANN's New gTLD Program, the 2012 expansion that let organizations worldwide apply for their own brand as a suffix. ADAC secured the string that matched its own name.
The club never opened the TLD to outside registrants. On 26 November 2022, ICANN removed .adac from the root zone, about seven years after it was first delegated — one of many closed dot-brands whose owners chose not to keep the registry running long term.
Why was .adac discontinued?
A brand TLD only earns its keep if the organization builds public-facing use on it, and running one carries ongoing ICANN fees and technical maintenance regardless of how many names exist under it. When an owner decides that cost is not worth it, it can voluntarily terminate its registry agreement; ICANN then removes the TLD from the root zone, and the extension stops resolving worldwide.
.adac is one of many closed dot-brands retired this way. Because it was never open to the public, its termination affected no outside registrants — there were none — but it is still a reminder that a delegated TLD is not a permanent fixture of the internet.
Can you register a .adac domain?
No. .adac no longer exists in the DNS, so there is nothing to register and no registrar can offer it. It was never available to the public even while it was active, because it was a closed brand namespace controlled by the club.
If a .adac link ever appears again, it would only be because ADAC re-applies in a later ICANN round — there is no public path to owning one today.
What .adac teaches about choosing a TLD
The rise and removal of .adac is a useful reminder for anyone picking a domain:
- Brand TLDs are private. A dot-brand is never something an outside project can build on, no matter how well known the parent organization is.
- Not every TLD is permanent. Delegated strings can be handed back and removed, so long-term projects are safest on well-established, widely used extensions.
- Openness matters. For your own venture, an open extension anyone can register and renew is far more dependable than a single-owner string.
What to register instead at Namefi
Since .adac is gone, choose a stable, open extension for your own name:
- Search your desired name across open TLDs such as .com, .io, or .xyz.
- Choose the extension that best fits your brand and budget.
- Register and configure DNS.
Namefi is an ICANN-accredited registrar that bridges Web2 and Web3, with transparent pricing, fast DNS, and the option to hold your name as a tokenized domain for provable ownership and easier transfer.
Frequently asked questions
Can I register a .adac domain?
No. .adac was terminated in 2022 and removed from the DNS root zone, so it no longer exists as a working extension and cannot be registered through any registrar. Even before that, it was a closed brand TLD never open to the public.
What happened to .adac?
ICANN removed .adac from the root zone on 26 November 2022 after the registry agreement covering it ended. It had been delegated about seven years earlier, in November 2015.
Was .adac ever open to the public?
No. .adac was always a closed brand TLD, meaning only ADAC e.V. could ever register names under it. It was never sold to outside individuals or businesses.
Did anyone ever use a .adac domain?
No public site of note. ADAC never opened the namespace to outside registrants, so nothing was lost when the TLD was removed.
Related resources
- What is a TLD? — how top-level domains work.
- What are tokenized domains? — owning a domain on-chain.
- How a TLD affects domain value — why the extension matters.
- .com TLD guide, .io TLD guide, and .xyz TLD guide — open extensions you can actually register.
- Glossary: new gTLD, ICANN, root zone.
Related keywords
- ADAC brand domain
- terminated TLD
- discontinued gTLD
- dot-brand TLD
- is .adac available
- what is .adac
- .adac domain
- .adac TLD
Contributors
Fenwei Bian is a software developer in her thirties who spends her working hours in pull requests and her weekends with her hands in soil or sawdust. Years of open source on GitHub taught her that names are interfaces: a good one is clear, honest about what it does, and kind to whoever has to use it next.
She gardens because it rewards patience and punishes wishful thinking, and she does woodwork because a joint either fits or it doesn't. Both habits show up in how she writes about naming — measure twice, check the source, and don't sand over a rough spot and hope no one notices.
For Namefi she writes about how domain markets actually move, the practical trade-offs of tokenizing and flipping names, and picking a domain you'll still be glad you own in twenty years.
Victor Zhou is a technology founder and standards editor focused on digital identity and trust. He founded Namefi, edits Ethereum Improvement Proposals, and previously led smart-contract architecture work at Google Labs.
His work sits at the intersection of naming, ownership, and the systems people use to establish identity online. That perspective makes him especially interested in the way names move between personal meaning, public recognition, and digital infrastructure.
For Namefi, Victor edits and writes about domains as durable digital identity: how names become ownable onchain assets, how tokenization changes custody and trust, and what naming can learn from the systems people use to establish identity online.