No more free transfers in Denmark

The Danish ccTLD registry has announced that it is to introduce a charge for .dk transfers for the first time in January.

From the start of 2019, transfers between registrants will cost DKK 50 (about $7.50), DK Hostmaster said today.

Currently, transfers are free.

It appears that the new fee will be levied on the gaining registrant.

DK Hostmaster said that the fee is to cover “administrative costs”.

.dk has about 1.3 million domains under management.

2 Comments Tagged: .dk, dk hostmaster

ICANN outs two more deadbeat new gTLDs

ICANN has published breach notices it has sent to two more new gTLD registries, which it says have failed to pay their quarterly accreditation fees.

One is a dot-brand, the other is not.

The brand is the Arabic اتصالات . (.xn--mgbaakc7dvf), managed by Emirati telecommunications powerhouse Etisalat.

With about $14 billion of annual revenue, no domains other than its obligatory NIC site, and an allegedly non-functioning contact phone number, it appears the UAE-based company may simply have forgotten its dot-brand exists.

The other registry allegedly in breach is Desi Networks, the US-based company that targets .desi at people hailing from the Indian subcontinent.

While it’s been on the market for over four years, and has an addressable market of over a billion people, .desi has failed to claw together much more than 3,700 domains under management.

I thought it would have performed better. The ccTLD for India has over two million domains, and the country has a thriving domain market.

With a retail price in the region of $20 per year, it’s easy to see why the .desi may be having trouble scraping together the $6,250 quarterly flat fee ICANN registry contracts demand.

Desi Networks also commits on its web site to donate some portion of its reg fees to worthy causes in the South Asian region, which was probably optimistic with hindsight.

ICANN first sent notices of late payment to both registries in September, but did not receive the requested money.

Both have until the first week of January to pay up, or ICANN will initiate termination proceedings.

Comment Tagged: .desi, .xn--mgbaakc7dvf, desi networks, etisalat, ICANN, اتصالات

.eu domains to be sold to non-residents

In a few years, you’ll no longer have to live in the European Union in order to buy a .eu domain name.

Residency requirements are to be dropped under new regulations approved by the European Parliament, Council and European Commission last week.

When the new rules come into effect — not expected until April 2023 — EU citizens based anywhere in the world will be able register .eu domains.

It’s not entirely clear how EURid, the current registry, will determine eligibility at point of sale, but I guess they have plenty of time to think about it.

Notably, the proposed new Regulation will shift oversight of .eu from one based on EU regulations to one based on a contract between the Commission and the registry operator.

It is hoped that this will give EURid the flexibility to more rapidly change its business model in future, merely having to agree upon a contract change rather than waiting for the EU institutions to chug through their lengthy legislative processes.

2 Comments Tagged: .eu, eurid

DNS inventor says .luxe first innovation in a decade

DNS inventor Paul Mockapetris has endorsed MMX’s foray into the blockchain as “the first genuine piece of DNS related innovation that I have seen in the last decade”.

The quote came in an MMX press release this morning, which provided an update on the launch of .luxe as the first gTLD that publishes information to the Ethereum blockchain as well as the DNS.

As I attempted to describe a few months ago, .luxe is being sold as an alternative way to address blockchain assets such as cryptocurrency wallets, which currently use nonsense, immemorable 40-character hashes.

MMX has built an API that allows registrars to automatically associate .luxe domains with Ethereum addresses.

The registry said today it now has 11 registrars signed up to use this API, along with 60 more selling vanilla .luxe domains.

In addition to its launch distribution partner, the wallet provider imToken, MMX said it has also signed up Bitxbank, BeeNews, BEPAL, Hillstone Partners, Math Wallet, MTC Mesh Network, Qufen, Fbee, and ChainDD, which all appear to be Asian blockchain software companies.

It expects to announce support for two non-Ethereum blockchains in the first half of next year.

Judging by zone files, .luxe names have not exactly been flying off the shelves since launch.

It had around 2,600 names in its zone file yesterday, having entered general availability about a month ago.

Despite this, CEO Toby Hall said in this morning’s press release that MMX’s initial investment in .luxe (I assume he’s referring to the R&D investment rather than the cost of applying for the gTLD) has already been recouped.

2 Comments Tagged: .luxe, blockchain, ethereum, imtoken, mmx, new gTLDs

New gTLDs continue growth trend, but can it last?

New gTLDs continued to bounce back following a year-long slump in registration volumes, according to Verisign data.

The company’s latest Domain Name Industry Brief, covering the third quarter, shows new gTLDs growing from 21.8 million names to 23.4 million names, a 1.6 million name increase.

New gTLDs also saw a 1.6 million-name sequential increase in the second quarter, which reversed five quarters of declines.

The sector has yet to surpass its peak of 25.6 million, which it reached in the fourth quarter of 2016.

It think it will take some time to get there, and that we’ll may well see a decline in next couple quarters.

The mid-point of the third quarter marked the end of deep discounting across the former Famous Four Media (now GRS Domains) portfolio (.men, .science, .loan, etc), but the expected downward pressure on volumes wasn’t greatly felt by the end of the period.

With GRS’s portfolio generally on the decline so far in Q4, we might expect it to have a tempering effect on gains elsewhere when the next DNIB is published.

Verisign’s data showed also that ccTLDs shrunk for the first time in a couple years, down by half a million names to 149.3 million. Both .uk and .de suffered six-figure losses.

Its own .net was flat at 14.1 million, showing no signs of recovery after several quarters of shrinkage, while .com increased by two million names to finish September with 137.6 under management.

2 Comments Tagged: cctlds, dnib, new gTLDs, verisign