dotMeow queer-owned Top-Level Domain on Kickstarter: Reclaiming Internet Infrastructure

The dotMeow queer-owned Top-Level Domain on Kickstarter is not just a new domain extension, it’s a proposal to rethink how internet infrastructure is owned, governed, and funded. Created by a queer-led, non-profit team, dotMeow aims to provide a stable, long-term piece of the web that prioritizes stewardship over extraction. By launching on Kickstarter, the project invites internet citizens, creators, and communities to support a vision of the web that is inclusive by design, transparent in governance, and intentional in its values. We spoke with the team behind dotMeow about its origins, what queer ownership means at the infrastructure level, and how they hope .meow will quietly reshape online identity.

The Idea Behind the dotMeow queer-owned Top-Level Domain on Kickstarter

What sparked the creation of the dotMeow queer-owned Top-Level Domain on Kickstarter, and why did you feel the internet needed a new kind of domain space?

Honestly, it started as a wholly unserious suggestion from Aeryn (our CEO) to TQ (our CFO) in a pub. I remember when TQ came home that evening and mentioned it to me, I never thought it’d go anywhere. Something worth understanding here is that folks with ADHD have ideas for projects all the time, they rarely end up seeing the light of day. Thankfully one of them had the bright idea of sending the other a signal message outlining the idea, so it didn’t get forgotten about entirely.

It becoming a reality was a different story altogether. We spent a lot of time talking about the origins of the internet, how it has evolved and what it looks like for most people today. Predictably this led to talking about the dominance of certain tech companies, the increasing normalisation of surveillance capitalism and the ways in which the communities we have been a part of have been sidelined, censored and deplatformed.

It is one thing to opine about the state of the world and a wholly different thing to do something about it. The discussion of what can be done, what can we personally do and how can we do it was not an easy one. Thankfully this idea had already been had, .meow. So, we decided to go for it. The application period for ICANN’s applicant support program (ASP) — a program designed to increase access to operating a gTLD, something that has historically been notoriously difficult and expensive, with the hope of fostering increased diversity and inclusivity on the internet — was just about to open so we got to work on getting everything in order to apply and thankfully sailed straight through the process.

Queer Ownership and Online Identity

dotMeow is presented as a queer-owned and community-driven TLD. What does queer ownership mean in the context of internet infrastructure and online identity?

When we say dotMeow is queer, we mean it in both senses of the word. On a literal level, we are predominantly queer ourselves (we have claimed Nadim as an honorary member of the queer community, a designation that he is totally fine with). But queerness isn’t just about who we are as people; it’s also about how we are choosing to operate.

Running internet infrastructure, including top level domains, is traditionally a for-profit endeavour. Choosing to run one as a non-profit is already a little against the grain. Queer ownership, in this context means actively resisting the assumption that internet infrastructure ought to be used for capitalistic ends. We are far more interested in stewardship and where there is money to be made, we wish to direct it to folks who need it far more than we ever will.

It is not possible to extract our motivations from our politics here nor would we wish to. Queer folks have been carving out spaces for ourselves for as long as queerness has been seen as other, on the internet — especially in recent years — it has become increasingly precarious. We hope that in owning and governing part of the internet’s underlying infrastructure we can help flip that dynamic. It’s not about representation on the surface level of usernames and content but about having agency over the rules, norms and economics of the system itself.

For online identity, this matters enormously. Domains are one of the few pieces of digital identity you can own. I personally go by my handle, which is encapsulated in my domain, more than I go by my wallet name, the same can be said for TQ. We hope that .meow will signal that there is room on the internet that is explicitly not hostile, not extractive by default, and not subject to sudden erasure (or takeover) because it doesn’t align with some corporation’s interests.

Governance, Values, and Infrastructure

How does dotMeow differ from traditional top-level domains in terms of governance, values, and the kind of projects you want to support?

We didn’t invent the idea of running a top-level domain as a non-profit. Many community TLDs already exist and do genuinely good work by redistributing their revenue back into the communities they represent. Where dotMeow differs is in both structure and intent. We are not applying as a community TLD, for one; we would never presume to represent everyone in the LGBTQIA+ community (we can’t, we are 6 predominantly trans, neurodivergent lesbians) but also applying as a general TLD gives a much broader scope of who can use it and what it can be used for. In the end I hope that what unites folks who buy .meow domains is that they aren’t bigots, even if they are or it’s just performative virtue signalling, at least their money will be going to do some good.

Our governance model is designed to prioritise transparency, accountability and long-term sustainability whilst still allowing for growth and revenue generation. Being a non-profit, especially in Belgium means we cannot seek to generate a profit. We are allowed to engage in commercial activities to generate revenue only for the furtherance of our charitable aims (development of queer communities online and in the real world, globally) and to cover our operational expenses.

Values-wise, we’re explicitly interested in supporting projects that materially support the queer community — whether that’s LGBT youth charities delivering services where they’re needed most, mutual aid networks filling in the gaps left by the state, or queer creatives developing businesses in an economic system that is often stacked against them. That doesn’t mean dotMeow is exclusionary or ideological in a narrow sense, but it does mean we’re not pretending to be neutral. Infrastructure is never neutral, and pretending otherwise is usually a way of maintaining the status quo.

Ultimately, dotMeow is about treating a TLD not just as a product, but as a piece of shared infrastructure. We want it to be boring in the ways that infrastructure should be boring — reliable, stable, predicatable — and radical in the ways it can be; in who gets access, how it is governed and what kinds of futures it quietly enables.

Who dotMeow Is For

What types of creators, communities, or projects do you imagine using dotMeow, and how do you hope it will be used differently from existing domains?

The honest answer is anyone who wants to. .meow isn’t designed to be a gated space or a badge that needs to be earned by membership of a given community or other. It’s intentionally subtle, designed to be more of a shibboleth than a billboard. A signal that broadcasts an affinity with the LGBTQIA+ community rather than a declaration of any aspect of one’s identity. We want it to feel natural on everything from a personal website to a small business, a zine archive, or for something that doesn’t exist yet.

From a practical standpoint, we hope it has enough mainstream and commercial appeal that it brings genuinely new money into the ecosystem. We would like to break free of the circulation pattern of the same ten dollars through six different PayPal accounts that is so prevalent in online queer spaces. We want dotMeow to also attract people who might otherwise register a .net or a .me and, by doing so, help fund the kinds of projects that struggle to survive in our current economic conditions.

Creatively, one of our biggest hopes is that .meow invites people to make things. Websites, art, experiments, half-finished ideas, strange side-projects.

Ideally, it reaches people who wouldn’t normally think about buying a domain at all, let alone doing anything with it. I got my first domain just so I could have a custom URL for my Tumblr account, of all things. That inspired me to learn how to make themes using CSS, it led to me learning a programming language and ultimately that led to me working in infosec. A discounted domain name when I was 13 led to me moving countries at 22 and meeting all three of my partners. It is why dotMeow exists even because it is highly unlikely that TQ and Aeryn would have met each other otherwise.

If owning a .meow domain nudges someone into publishing their first website, learning a new skill, or just putting a small piece of themselves online, that’d be a huge success in our books.

Why Kickstarter and What Comes Next

Why was Kickstarter the right platform to launch dotMeow, and how do you see this top-level domain evolving once the campaign is complete?

Choosing Kickstarter was one the first things we collectively agreed on. If you ask, “where do you go to get something funded on the internet?”, the answer is still, very straightforwardly, Kickstarter. It’s a platform people largely understand, even if they have never used it before. The mechanism is familiar to most, expectations are clear and there’s a built-in culture of backing ideas because you want them to exist.

This is a project that we think will resonate most strongly with people who consider themselves citizens of the internet. Folks who grew up online, built their communities there, learned who they were there, or found safety and support there when they couldn’t elsewhere. Kickstarter broadly manages to gather that audience and allows us to speak to that audience directly.

Once the campaign is complete (if successful) the work of doing the ICANN application begins. We expect this process to take close to two years, based on the estimations provided to us and then it’ll be about building ourselves up to be as stable and as boring as possible in all the ways that infrastructure ought to be.

Long-term, we see ourselves as something that will quietly embed itself into the fabric of the web. Not a trend but a durable piece of internet infrastructure that reflects a different set of priorities.

Thank you for taking the time to unpack the thinking behind dotMeow, this is a rare project that challenges how we think about ownership, identity, and the foundations of the internet itself.

The dotMeow queer-owned Top-Level Domain on Kickstarter is a reminder that internet infrastructure is never neutral—and that it can be redesigned with intention. Rather than treating a TLD as a purely commercial product, the dotMeow team frames it as shared, long-term infrastructure shaped by values of stewardship, transparency, and care. By choosing a non-profit model and centering queer communities without gatekeeping, dotMeow proposes a quieter but more durable form of change. If successful, it won’t shout its presence—it will simply exist, reliably and persistently, as part of a web that reflects different priorities.

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FAQ about The dotMeow queer-owned Top-Level Domain

What is dotMeow?

dotMeow is a proposed top-level domain (.meow) operated as a non-profit, queer-owned internet infrastructure project. It is designed to support creators, communities, and projects while redistributing revenue toward queer-focused initiatives.

Is dotMeow only for LGBTQIA+ users?

No. dotMeow is a general-use TLD. While it is queer-owned and values-driven, it is open to anyone who aligns with its principles and wants to support a more inclusive internet.

Why launch dotMeow on Kickstarter?

Kickstarter provides a familiar platform for funding ideas people want to exist. It allows dotMeow to reach internet-native communities and validate support before beginning the ICANN application process.

When will .meow domains be available?

If the campaign succeeds, the ICANN application and approval process is expected to take around two years before domains become available.

How will dotMeow use its revenue?

As a non-profit, dotMeow can only generate revenue to support its charitable goals and operational costs, with a focus on funding queer communities, mutual aid, and creative projects.

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About the Creator

dotMeow is developed by a queer-led, non-profit team based in Belgium, including Aeryn, TQ, Nadim, and collaborators with backgrounds in technology, governance, and community organizing. Their work focuses on reclaiming parts of internet infrastructure to support queer communities globally, prioritizing long-term stewardship over profit. Through dotMeow, they aim to build a stable, values-driven top-level domain that quietly enables new forms of online expression and ownership.