Why We Took This Step
Historical record from 2020. This article describes the announcement or guidance at that time; it does not confirm today’s service arrangements, product support or security status. At ICT Shift, we normally favor precise, minimal interventions. However, the .icu domain extension has been heavily abused for spam, and existing blacklist providers and registries have not acted quickly enough. To safeguard our customers, we have added .icu to our blocklist.
Our Priority: Protecting Customers
Our main responsibility is keeping inboxes safe and reliable. When spam campaigns bypass content filters — for example, by exploiting trending keywords — we also analyze IP ranges and domain extensions. In this case, .icu domains showed a disproportionate level of abuse.
Whitelisting Legitimate Businesses
We are not opposed to any domain extension in principle. If your business operates on a .icu domain and you are affected by this block, you may request whitelisting. Requests must be legitimate and personal, and we will review them individually.
Looking Ahead
We encourage registries and communities managing new TLDs to take stronger action against abuse. Until then, we will continue to take the steps necessary to protect our customers’ communication.
