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Microsoft has moved two of its branded gTLDs from GoDaddy's registry back-end to Nominet's. Records show that .skype and .office both recently made the switch. Microsoft had already moved six TLDs — .azure, .bing, .hotmail, .microsoft, .windows and .xbox — from Verisign to Nominet about a year ago, and .skype and .office mean its whole ...
ICANN has narrowed down the expected application fee for the next round of new gTLDs, and while it's towards the lower end of previous guidelines, it's still much higher than in 2012. The bog-standard base application fee is now expected to be $220,000, according to a draft document circulated by ICANN. That's up on the […] The post ICANN hom...
Four dot-brand gTLDs have recently changed their back-end providers, according to the latest records, three moving away from Verisign. US insurance company American Family Insurance has moved its .americanfamily and .amfam from Verisign to GoDaddy, as has AARP, a US interest group representing retired people, with .aarp. Aquarelle.com Group, a Fren...
A registrar in Uzbekistan has become the first in the country to receive its official ICANN accreditation, according to the latest records. Tashkent-based Suvan.net, which does business as @host.uz (ahost.uz), currently specializes in the local .uz ccTLD, where it appears to be the leading registrar by some margin. The company already sells gTLD do...
Trkiye's ccTLD has seen a massive spike in registrations, experiencing instant growth of about 8%, at the end of its year-long second-level liberalization process. The .tr space had 1,187,324 domains at the end of yesterday, according to stats published by government-run registry Trabis, up about 91,000 on the previous day. That's more that four ti...
With the latest public debate about whether Verisign is ripping off registrants with its .com pricing now into its third month, one voice has been conspicuously absent. But the Internet Commerce Association, which represents domain investors and domaining registrars, has now publicly called for .com wholesale fees to continue to be capped and Veris...
It's finally happened. Somebody has announced an application for a new gTLD that will almost certainly fall foul of ICANN's rules and be rejected. The applicant is Farmsent, a United Arab Emirates startup that is building a blockchain-based marketplace for farmers and buyers of farm produce, and its domains partner is Unstoppable Domains. Unstoppab...
Usage of ICANN's experimental Registration Data Request Service may have hit what might in future pass for normal levels, with not a massive amount of fluctuation across several key statistics for the last few months. But ICANN's latest monthly stats report, published late last week, shows that July was the worst month so far in […] The post ...
One of ICANN's longest-serving employees has sued the Org and her old boss, claiming she suffered from years of sexual harassment and discrimination and was then laid off after she complained about her treatment. The harassment claims relate to two male former ICANN employees and cover alleged behavior from off-color sexual jokes to groping, what [...
Unstoppable Domains has become the second blockchain alt-root naming service to get its ICANN accreditation. The company said today it intends to carry the "the vast majority of generic top-level domains". It had already been selling .com names, alongside its suite of blockchain extensions, as a reseller. It also said it intends to sell ccTLD [R...
A domain hosting a fun little video game for Lidl staff was the highlight dot-brand domain registration in July. There were 210 registrations in dot-brands in July 2024, spread across 34 individual TLDs. As usual, the largest registrant was German financial services firm Deutsche Vermgensberatung, which gives .dvag domains to its agents, with 90 ne...
ICANN has backtracked and substantially pared down a proposal that could have weakened its accountability mechanisms after most of the community said they didn't like it. The Org has published for public comment a proposed amendment to its bylaws that will exclude its new Grant Program from the Request for Reconsideration and Independent Review Pro...
ICANN is set to terminate the registry contracts for five new gTLDs run by an apparent deadbeat registry. Asia Green IT System's agreements for .pars, .shia, .tci, .nowruz and . (.xn--mgbt3dhd) have all been "Escalated to Termination Process" following a July breach notice, according to ICANN's web site. The first stage of the termination is [̷...
The US government and Verisign are to enter talks about possible changes to .com pricing. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has told the company that it "intends to renew its Agreement with Verisign" but said it welcomed Verisign agreeing to talks that "may include an amendment to the pricing terms". The news came in [&...
Two ICANN directors will lose their seats on the board and be replaced by newcomers at the Org's annual general meeting later this year. Vice chair Danko Jevtovi and Edmon Chung, who have served two and one of the maximum three three-year terms, will depart, according to the announcement of this year's Nominating Committee picks. […] The post...
Cabo Verde has become the latest nation to market its ccTLD globally based on its meaning in other languages. The country's .cv domain is now available via several registrars and recently formed registry entity OlaCV. A CV is of course shorthand for "curriculum vitae", what Americans call a rsum, in many countries. OlaCV reckons its […] The p...
ICANN has formally confirmed that the gTLD .internal will never be delegated. Its board of directors resolved earlier this week that it "reserves .INTERNAL from delegation in the DNS root zone permanently to provide for its use in private-use applications." It went on to recommend "that efforts be undertaken to raise awareness of its reservation [&...
Amazon Registry is to finally launch two of the gTLDs it has been sitting on for the best part of a decade. The company expects to take .deal and .now to sunrise later this month, with general availability following in September. According to information provided by ICANN, sunrise for both runs for a month from […] The post Amazon to launch t...
Scandal-rocked registrar Epik promised to turn over a new leaf when it got acquired last year, and now the guy in charge of the domains business — a familiar face to many– has broken cover and talked to DI about the company's recent woes and turnaround plans. That guy is director of domains Christopher Ambler, […] The post Reveale...
Jia-Rong Low, VP of stakeholder engagement and managing director for the Asia Pacific region, has quit ICANN and will leave next month. An 11-year veteran of the Org, Low was the second hire in the Singapore office where he was based, ICANN interim CEO Sally Costerton said in a statement. He will be replaced by […] The post ICANN swaps out As...
Nominet said today that it has no plans to raise the price of .uk domains, even as registration volumes continue to sink and profits tumbled. The registry said in its annual report that its net loss for the year ended March 31 was 6 million ($7.7 million), compared to 3.9 million ($5 million) in fiscal […] The post No .uk price hikes despite ...
In the fastest-published quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief in many years, Verisign last night reported that the world's extant domain name registrations increased by 5.8 million in the second quarter. The report was published to coincide with Verisign's Q2 earnings report, and came just two weeks after the publication of the Q1 brief. The trend ...
Verisign has yet again massively downgraded its expectations for .com growth, after it lost almost two million domains in the second quarter. The company said it had 170.6 million .com and .net domains at the end of June, down 1.8 million compared to Q1 and a 2.2% decrease compared to a year earlier. CEO Jim […] The post Verisign predicts mor...
Three Republican members of the US House of Representatives have raised the specter of Verisign having to compete to renew its .com deal with the US government. In a letter to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Congresspeople ask whether NTIA has made any efforts to renegotiate or obtain public feedback on its contr...
ICANN has floated the idea of hosting smaller, more focused meetings that eschew tedious PowerPoint presentations and do away with the free cocktail receptions. Seeking to eliminate $10 million from its annual budget, management recently reached out to community leaders to see if they can put their heads together to make ICANN's public meetings les...
ICANN plans to ban private auctions in the next new gTLD application round, chair Tripti Sinha has told governments. The board of directors plans to accept the Governmental Advisory Committee's recent advice to "prohibit the use of private auctions in resolving contention sets in the next round of New gTLDs", Sinha told her GAC counterpart […...
auDA is to raise the wholesale price of .au domains later this year in response to inflation. The registry said that the price will go up from AUD 7.78 to AUD 8.45 ($5.60 USD), not including sales tax, on October 1 due to "inflation-based cost pressures". auDA said the prices mean .au domains will continue […] The post .au prices going up fir...
Nominet has named the five people who have put themselves forward for two seats on it board of directors. While there are familiar faces, there are also notable absences. Ashley La Bolle of Tucows is defending her non-executive director seat and standing for her second term, but fellow NED Simon Blackler, famously of the PublicBenefit.uk […] ...
The domain name industry seemed to have dodged a bullet when it came to last Friday's devastating worldwide computer outage, but it emerged over the weekend that at least one ear was grazed. ICANN revealed late Friday that its email systems, hosted by an external provider, were affected by the bug, which saw millions of […] The post Crowdstri...
A community-run URL "blacklist" project has claimed credit for the complaints that led to .TOP Registry getting hit by an ICANN Compliance action earlier this week. .TOP was told on Tuesday that it has a month to sort of its abuse-handing procedures or risk losing the .top gTLD, which has over three million domains. ICANN […] The post We gras...
ICANN is planning to give $5 million of its auctions war-chest to new gTLD applicants from less well-off nations and wants community feedback on the idea. The Org is sitting on over $200 million raised by auctioning gTLDs from the 2012 application round, and thinks some of it could be well-spent on subsidizing applicants in […] The post ICANN...
UKTV, the company that runs a number of basic cable TV stations in the UK, has rebranded itself as U, and is now using u.co.uk as its primary destination domain. Its channels have been rebranded to the domain-resistant U&Dave, U&W, U&DRAMA and U&YESTERDAY. The "masterbrand" U will be used for its streaming services. The domain [...
.TOP Registry allegedly ignored reports about phishing attacks and has become the first ICANN contracted party to get put on the naughty step over DNS abuse rules that came into effect a few months ago. ICANN has issued a public breach notice claiming that the registry, which runs .top, has also been ignoring the results […] The post First re...
The number of North Americans and ICANN staffers turning up to the latest community meeting hit their lowest numbers since records began, according to newly published ICANN statistics. In-person attendance plummeted compared to the same meeting last year, and the total number of North Americans collecting lanyards was the lowest since ICANN started...
ICANN's Registration Data Request Service saw a small improvement in usage and response times in June, but it did lose a registrar, according to statistics published today. There were 170 requests for private Whois data in the month, up a little from May's historic low of 153, and 20.88% were approved, compared to 20.29% in […] The post RDRS ...
Unstoppable Domains, operator of the blockchain-based alternative naming system, has had its domain hijacked and is warning customers to be wary of further scams and attacks. "Unstoppabledomains.com has been subject to an attack. Do NOT open emails from @unstoppabledomains.com or use the website until further notice," the company tweeted on Twitter...
ICANN has thrown four more gTLDs into the Emergency Back-End Registry Operator program, presumably as a prelude to terminating their registry's contracts in a few weeks. Asia Green IT System's .pars, .shia, .tci and . (.xn--mgbt3dhd) are all going EBERO, meaning Nominet will take over their operation on ICANN's behalf. Not that they need much [R...
The seasonally strong first quarter saw growth return to the domain industry, despite .com's continuing woes, according to the latest edition of Verisign's Domain Name Industry Brief. There were 362.4 million domain registrations across all TLDs at the end of March, up by 2.5 million names or 0.7% from the start of the year, according […] The...
Registry-reserved premium domain sales were down a fair bit last year, according to a summary released by the registry today. DoMEn said it sold 317,500 of premiums last year. That compares to a total of 591,500 in 2022, when the numbers came in two halves. It sold 51 premiums in total, compared to 77 in […] The post .me premium sales down fi...
There are any number of ways gay people can express themselves during Pride, but buying gay-themed domain names doesn't appear to be one of them. Zone files show that the .gay gTLD lost over 700 domains in June, which is recognized in most Anglophone liberal democracies as Pride Month, to end the period with about […] The post Pride fails to ...
In the run-up to the 2012 new gTLD application round, we were hard-pressed to find a company willing to announce an application. This time around, announcements are coming out of the blockchain world at the rate of about one a week. Unstoppable Domains has announced that it's working with Raiinmaker Network to operate .raiin, first […] The po...
A company heavily involved in promoting blockchain-based domain name alternatives has received its ICANN registrar accreditation, allowing it to sell real domains as well. Switzerland-based Freename's London subsidiary seems to have obtained the accreditation in the last week or so. Accreditation means it gets the right to sell gTLD domains from an...
ICANN has swooped to take over operation of a new gTLD after it missed its strict thresholds for Whois availability. .nowruz, originally operated by Istanbul-based Asia Green IT System, is now in the Emergency Back-End Registry Operator program, meaning its essential functions will be carried out by Nominet. The gTLD is the Latinized version of [&#...
Verisign has responded to the campaign to have the US government cancel its contract to run .com and open the agreement to competitive bidding, saying it is "wrong" and "based on a fundamental misunderstanding" of the deal. The American Economic Liberties Project, the Demand Progress Education Fund, and the Revolving Door Project put their names [&...
The chance of five new gTLDs themed around the Middle East ever going live has substantially decreased after the registry seemed to disappear and got hit by a third ICANN breach notice. The registry is Istanbul-based Asia Green IT System, which goes by AGIT or AgitSys, and the five gTLDs are .nowruz (Iranian New Year), […] The post Five gTLDs...
Three pressure groups in the US have called on the government to strip Verisign of its .com contract, saying the company is operating as a "de facto cartel" with ICANN that has allowed its shareholders to milk the public for billions. But their argument has a pretty significant hole in it, based on an apparent […] The post Groups make flawed ...
Usage of ICANN's Registration Data Request Service, which lets people submit Whois queries to registrars, hit a new low in May, six months after its launch. RDRS was used to submit 156 requests for private Whois day in the period, the lowest number to date. In December, there were 173 requests; the peak was 290 […] The post RDRS usage hits al...
Indian consumer goods firm Dabur has told ICANN to turn off its dot-brand for the second time, having had second thoughts a few years ago. The company, which mainly sells Ayurvedic alternative medicine products, had originally asked for its registry contract for .dabur to be terminated in 2021, but changed its mind shortly before ICANN […] Th...
PorkBun has announced its passed the two million domains under management milestone, having added a net million names in two years. The nine-year-old company is not especially .com-heavy, according to registry transaction reports, with about 611,000 .coms in its care. It also does a pretty brisk trade in niche gTLDs such as .lat, where it's […...
If you can't buy 'em, join 'em? Ben Crawford, who was CEO of Team Internet back when it was CentralNic, has returned to the industry after a couple years away as a consultant/director to become the new CEO of corporate registrar Com Laude, a company he said he once tried to buy. Crawford said he […] The post Crawford returns to industry to he...
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