Recent Posts
- ICANN puts blockchain on the agenda for good
- New gTLD in trouble as largest registrar gets suspended
- ICANN picks comms firm for new gTLDs outreach
- Donuts goes with bland, forgettable, for new company name [rant]
- Broker says it will sue after DNS abuse sting operation
- Unstoppable targets another city gTLD with free domains
- Dynadot takes down its own web site after apparent breach
- The slow crawl to closed generics at ICANN 74
- Controversial Chinese firm among two newly revealed UNR gTLD buyers
- Over 900 people show up for ICANN 74
- Verisign and Afilias spar over .web delays
- Hamburg selected for next year’s ICANN AGM
- Amazon governments not playing ball with Amazon’s .amazon
- High fives, or elbows only? ICANN 74 intros traffic light system for socializing
- NetBeacon goes live for DNS abuse reporting
- As registration closes, many ICANN 74 sessions at bursting point
- Belarusian domains to change hands
- As GoDaddy shutters URL shortener, could x.co come back on the market?
- Nominet opens directorship nominations
- GoDaddy acquires two education-themed gTLDs
- Crypto domains: a feminist issue?
- Turkey name change could free up gTLD string
- Porkbun offering free .gay domains for Pride month
- DNSAI to name most-abused registries, registrars
- NameSilo profitable in Q1
- Meds regulator won’t say why it gets domains suspended
- Porkbun hits a million domains
- Porn names to feature at NamesCon Global
- Pizza company suffers from penisland syndrome
- Seat reservations and waiting lists on the cards for ICANN 74
- New gTLDs or Whois access? What’s more important?
- Domain sales down even as revenue booms at CentralNic
- ICANN kicks the can on .web yet again
- ALAC’s brutal takedown of that “aggressive” ICANN 74 coronavirus waiver
- .link gTLD buyer revealed
- After 10 months, ICANN board “promptly” publishes its own minutes
- China yanks Daily Stormer domain after Buffalo mass shooting
- Fewer domain companies closing down than expected
- ICANN highlights “not getting things done” risk
- Another single-TLD brand protection service planned
- Dot Hip Hop slashes prices 80% in relaunch
- Three gTLDs to lose Donuts trademark protection
- Tucows to reanimate Tucows brand as sales flatten
- Blockchain domains pose “significant risks” to internet, says ICANN
- Russian registry hit with second breach notice after downtime
- Two countries could lose registrar competition after breach notices
- .tattoo — another UNR gTLD auction winner emerges
- Neustar now linked to scandal in the Catholic church
- SSAD: Whois privacy-busting white elephant to be shelved
- ICANN reports shocking increase in pandemic scams
- Kaufmann selected for ICANN board
- Secondary market fluffs GoDaddy amid slowdown concerns
- Washington DC picked for ICANN 77
- UDRP suspended in Ukraine
- Gee, thanks. auDA cuts price of .au names by five cents
- ICANN salary porn: 2021 edition
- A sign of things to come? Verisign slashes outlook in post-pandemic slowdown
- UDRP comments reveal shocking lack of trust in ICANN process
- CentralNic sees 51% growth in Q1
- Ukraine won’t delete domains until war is over
- Covid surge scuppers ICANN LA meetings
- Vox Pop defends its favorite cybersquatter
- ICANN picks recipient of $1 million Ukraine aid
- More friction over closed generics
- ICANN’s Covid-19 waiver formally appealed
- GoDaddy and XYZ sign away rights after UNR’s crypto gambit
- Verisign wipes free TLDs from the world stats
- ICANN picks 28 registries for abuse audit
- TMCH turning off some brand-blocking services
- Bye-bye Alice’s Registry
- .kids goes live, plans to launch this year
- ICANN suggests its Covid waiver may be worthless
- Domain sales exempt from US sanctions on Russia
- African Union can’t register .africa domain
- Microsoft seizes domains Russia was using to attack Ukraine
- Blacknight objects to ICANN 74 Covid waiver
- DNS Abuse Institute names free tool NetBeacon, promises launch soon
- Radix renewals drive growth as revenue hits $38 million
- GoDaddy formally signs .tv registry contract
- ICANN lists the reasons I probably won’t be going to ICANN 74
- A public apology for my April Fool’s blog post
- ICANN accidentally summons Lesser Old One in DNSSEC snafu
- ICANN “volunteers” want to get paid for sitting through pandemic Zoom calls
- War fails to stop .ua domains selling
- Marby pledges low red tape in $1 million Ukraine donation
- 2LDs boost .au’s growth
- With mystery auction winner, .sexy prices go from $25 to $2,500
- Ukraine registry hit by 57 attacks in a week
- ICANN says higher domain prices may be in the public interest
- .org price caps: ICANN chair denies “secret” meetings
- Nigeria slashes prices to compete with .com
- .au names available today
- GoDaddy acquires DNAcademy
- Google to launch a shopping-themed gTLD next week
- Another DNSSEC screw-up takes down thousands of .au domains
- XYZ bought most of Uniregistry’s TLDs
- What to make of this strange trend in new domain regs?
- EURid appoints new CEO
- Mutually assured destruction? Now Afilias faces .web disqualification probe
- Closed generic gTLDs likely to be allowed, as governments clash with ICANN
- 101domain throttles its business in Russia
- ICANN bigwigs support sanctions on Russian domains
- Soviet Union “no longer considered eligible for a ccTLD”, ICANN chair confirms
- Nominet cuts off Russian registrars
- Now Sedo pulls the plug on Russians
- DNSSEC claims another victim as entire TLD disappears
- Ukraine’s emotional plea to ICANN 73
- ICANN extends Covid-19 abuse monitoring to Ukraine war
- ICANN’s Ukraine relief may extend to Russians too
- ICANN offers $1 million to Ukraine projects, supports Ukrainian registrants
- Here’s a way ICANN could actually help the people of Ukraine
- GoDaddy stops selling .ru domains, commits money to support Ukraine
- Gandi says it supports Ukraine but WON’T cut off Russians
- Now IONOS kicks out Russian customers
- ICANN says NO to Ukraine’s Big Ask
- Namecheap offers free services to Russian dissidents
- CENTR kicks out Russia
- Ukraine asks ICANN to turn off Russia’s internet, but it’s a bad idea
- Namecheap boss goes nuclear on Russian customers
- Noss pressures bankers, lawyers over Russian oligarch links
- As Russia advances on Kyiv, .ua moves out-of-country
- Maybe now’s the time for ICANN to start dismantling the Soviet Union
- Cybersquatting cases down in .uk
- GoDaddy among five companies competing for .za contract
- Registrar hit with second porn UDRP breach notice this year
“Ditch .com!” government to tell Indians
The Indian government is to urge citizens to register .in domain names instead of .com, according to local reports.
The Economic Times reports today that the Ministry of Economy and IT is to launch a “massive advertising campaign aimed at companies, individuals and startups” promoting .in.
Rajiv Bansal, MEIT joint secretary, is reported as saying the campaign will play up to nationalist sentiments
The government wants to grow .in from about 2.1 million domains to 3 million domains by March next year, it said.
Prices could come down to the $2 to $3 range, the paper said.
The campaign is due to start in a month or so, it was reported.
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For a second I thought your title was about my domain name ditch.com 🙂
The problem with .in is that its version of UDRP makes UDRP look like a perfect system. .In decisions are a joke.
You should sell it to Radix or other new gTLD registries, it goes perfectly with “unCOMplicate” and similar themes…
That’s a good idea
I’m sure we will see an explosion of more registrations if the price goes down that much.
Will we ? Price is not the only issue affecting domain registrations in a country like India, local language support is also a challenge in a country that have many of those.
Actually, local language support isn’t nearly as crucial an issue in India as it is in say, China. That said, the Registry has been fairly sporting when it comes to promotions, with most Registrars offering deep discounts anyway. Awareness is a far bigger problem in a nation with over 60 million enterprises.
.IN is a very promising ccTLD, despite flaws in the INDRP. Ultimately the registry will see which side its bread is buttered on, and the market itself will lead to policy revision.
Many Indian .IN investor colleagues of mine are very enthusiastic about this forthcoming ad campaign by NIXI.
Ditch.com … Hard to take seriously a .COM domain that advocates abandoning .COM. Good brand name for other purposes, though.
It is a lot harder for a registry to change the habits of a market when the market itself is still in the early, outward looking phase. Most websites and development in that phase tend to be pitching to a global/export market and the .COM TLD is the most accepted TLD for that purpose. What the .IN registry has to do is to build usage in the .IN ccTLD so that it becomes the First Choice TLD for local businesses and users. Otherwise it will trigger a boom and bust cycle like those seen in .INFO, .XYZ etc. The renewal rates on heavily discounted registrations varies but on free registrations and substantially discounted ones, it is close to 5%.
@John McCormac,
In cases where the advertising is aimed primarly at domainers and pricing is dropped to 50 cents or even 1 penny, then – yes, absolutely – the registry encourages massive speculation by bulk buyers who are very unlikely to put domains to use. So, as you say, the name space locks itself into a boom and bust cycle.
But if the advertising is aimed at real business owners and consumers rather than domainers … and if registrations are only discounted by (say) 50% and not poured out onto the street for a million pennies … then the outcome may be quite different, leading to more real usage. In that scenario, the renewal rates could be much more stable and the doom of a boom/bust cycle averted.
Cheap domains are often felt to be inconsequential by owners who register them without any real deliberation. But “cheap” is relative. If a domainer in Berlin pays $3 for a .IN domain, he may feel little attachment to it. But to an Indian business owner registering his first .IN domain, that $3 (while hardly a fortune) counts for a bit more.