.au regs slide on 2LD anniversary

Australia’s ccTLD has taken a rare turn for the worse recently in terms of domains under management, around the anniversary of a major name release.

.au had 4,227,033 domains today according to the registry’s web site. That’s down about 36,000 from the 4,263,106 names it was reporting on September 21.

September 21 was the one-year anniversary of registry auDA releasing millions of previously reserved second-level domains into the available pool, the last stage of its liberalization of the registration rules.

The registry took over 100,000 registrations in just a couple of days upon that release.

The released names were all those that had been held back as “priority” reservations for six months to give the owners of the matching third-level .com.au or .org.au domains first refusal.

While auDA does not daily break down its 2LD versus 3LD numbers, it seems likely the recent declines can be attributable to the predictable first-anniversary junk drop.

Before the 2LD service became available in March 2022, .au had 3.4 million domains under management, so the program has still boosted numbers overall.

One in six .au domains is a 2LD

The .au ccTLD had over 700,000 direct second-level registrations at the end of 2022, according to registry auDA.

In its annual report (pdf) published this week, auDA said it had over 716,000 2LD regs. The second level space was opened up in March last year with a six-month grandfathering period.

It had 4,160,209 domains overall at the end of December, so roughly one in six .au regs was a 2LD.

In the comparable .uk liberalization, which had a five-year grandfathering period, at its peak in 2019 roughly one in four names was a 2LD. Today, it’s more like one in 10.

Whether .au will follow the same trend remains to be seen.

.au adds 100,000 names in days after 2LD floodgates open

The Australian ccTLD, .au, added over 100,000 domain registrations in just a couple of days after restrictions were lifted on second-level names last week.

Local registry auDA is currently reporting 4,109,218 registered names (second and third-level combined), compared to 4,003,804 at the start of the month.

My records show that about 90,000 names were added in the day after unclaimed 2LDs were released back into the available pool after a six-month grandfathering period in which only matching 3LD owners could register.

.au had 3.4 million domains under management in late March, when auDA first started selling 2LDs.

At AUD 7.83 ($5) a year wholesale, the expansion seems to have netted auDA an extra recurring $3 million at least, of which back-end operator Identity Digital will also claim a slice.

Adoption light with four weeks to .au’s 2LD deadline

Australians have just four weeks left to take advantage of auDA’s second-level domain grandfathering program, but so far uptake has been light.

Owners of third-level .au domains have until September 20 to claim their matching 2LDs before they are released into the general availability pool, the end of a six-month process.

But to date there have only been about 200,000 2LD registrations, auDA said in a press release this week, a small percentage of the almost 3.7 million overall .au registrations.

“We received more than 35,000 registrations in the first 24 hours, nearly 80,000 registrations in the first week and over 200,000 registrations to date,” CEO Rosemary Sinclair said, describing uptake as “strong”.

Second-level liberalizations in other ccTLDs have not exactly set the world on fire. Nominet’s .uk 2LDs under management currently run at less than 15% of the 3LD level.

auDA updates on 2LD .au sales

Registrations of second-level domains in .au led to strong growth in the second quarter, according to auDA.

The number of 2LDs registered between the namespace opening up March 24 and the end of June was more than 170,000 the registry said in its latest quarterly report.

There were 218,886 newly registered names in the second quarter, which ended with 3,603,924 total names under management, auDA said.

From launch and for the next few months, all 2LDs are reserved for owners of the matching 3LDs in for example .com.au, so it seems adoption is still quite slow.

In .uk, which liberalized its own zone several years ago, there were 1,370,488 registered 2LDs, compared to 9,777,315 3LDs, at the end of July, registry stats show.

2LDs boost .au’s growth

Australian ccTLD registry auDA has been reporting registration volumes growing much faster than usual in the days since it started selling .au domains directly at the second level.

The company is currently reporting a grand total of 3,492,366 domains, which is up by almost 78,000 since March 24, when 2LDs went on sale.

Normally, .au rarely grows by more than about 500 domains per day.

Right now and for the next six months, all 2LDs have been reserved for the owners of their exact-match third-level domains, so there’s not the same kind of rush you might expect in a first-come, first-served scenario.

.au names available today

Australians are able to register domain names directly under .au for the first time today, after ccTLD registry auDA liberalized its hierarchy.

Second-level names under .au will at first only be available to existing registrants of matching third-level names in zones such as .com.au and .net.au, under a priority allocation process.

This process lasts for six months and allows domain owners to claim their matching 2LD more or less immediately, assuming there are no other registrants with matching rights.

In cases where more than one registrant applies for the name domain — such as when example.com.au and example.net.au are owned by different people — a contention process kicks in.

Registrants with reg dates before the cut-off of February 4, 2018 get priority over those with later dates.

If there are only registrants with names newer than the cut-off date, the oldest one gets priority.

If there are only registrants with names older than the cut-off date, they’ll have to come to a bilateral agreement about who gets the name. If they can’t come to a deal, the name stays reserved, and the applicants will have to renew their applications annually, until only one applicant remains.

There are no auDA-backed auctions envisaged by the process.

Any domains that are unclaimed at the end of the priority process will be released into the available pool on September 20.

It’s a much shorter grandfathering period than other liberalized ccTLDs, such as Nominet, which gave .co.uk registrants five years to claim their matching 2LD, and it will be interesting to see what impact this has on uptake.

Direct .uk domains became available in June 2014, and six months later barely a quarter million had been registered, against over 10 million third-level names.

As the five-year priority window drew to a close in 2019, there were about 2.5 million .uk 2LDs, but this spiked to 3.6 million in the final month, as registrants waited until the last minute to claim their names.

That turned out to be the peak — .uk 2LDs stand at fewer than 1.4 million today, compared to the 9.7 million third-level names. It’s still quite rare to spot a direct .uk name in the wild here.

One interesting kink in the priority process is that auDA, which has stricter rules than many other ccTLDs, will check that anyone who applies for a 2LD is in fact eligible for the 3LD they currently hold, which could dissuade applications.

.au currently has 3.4 million third-level domains under management.

Argentina will use a lottery to decide 2LD landrush

Argentina has become the latest country to allow its ccTLD registrants to register domains at the second level.
NIC Argentina announced last week that in addition to third-level domains such as example.com.ar and example.net.ar, you’ll be able to buy example.ar too.
While it’s following in the footsteps of the likes of .uk and .nz (and soon .au), Argentina is taking a slightly different approach to grandfathering and conflicts.
First, the priority registration period is pretty short, at least compared to the five years .uk registrants got.
If you already own a .ar 3LD, you only have until November 9 to get your application in for the matching 2LD.
In the event that more than one application is received from eligible registrants, the winner won’t be decided by auction, but by lottery.
The City of Buenos Aires Lottery will conduct the raffle, randomly assigning priority numbers to applicants to determine who gets first dibs on their domain of choice.
It’s the first time I’ve seen a domain contest settled by lottery since the process ICANN used to assign priorities to new gTLD applicants back in 2012.
From November 25 until January 23, the .ar process will enter a landrush phase, during which anyone can apply for any available 2LD they want by paying a non-refundable application fee.
The fee is ARS 200, the Argentine peso equivalent of $3.50, so the registry can hardly be accused of greed.
Again, competing bids will be settled by the same lottery process, with the winner having to pay the standard ARS 340 registration fee (the equivalent of $6) to claim their domain.
After February 23, it’s open season, with every domain in general availability.
.ar currently has just shy of half a million domains under management, and hasn’t seen any significant growth in a couple of years.
It will be interesting to see how popular the 2LD offer is, and what impact it has on domain growth in the industry overall.
Argentina allows .ar registrations from non-residents, but it does not appear to be a simple process.

Second-level .au names delayed

If you’re champing at the bit to grab yourself some second-level .au domain names, you’re going to have to wait a little longer.
Australian ccTLD manager auDA said today that it is delaying the controversial release by three months, to give it more time to carry out public outreach.
In a statement, interim chair Suzanne Ewart said that “it is critically important that the changes are widely understood, backed by an education program and supported by robust business processes throughout industry.”
The original plan had been to been to make 2LDs available in a staggered manner starting at some point in the fourth quarter. The delay will push the release into 2020.
The proposed launch has been controversial among the domain investment part of the auDA membership, which largely believes that it could lead to confusion with the existing three-level structure of the .au space.

1.8 million UK grandfathers die after Nominet deadline hits

The deadline for registering “grandfathered” second-level domains in .uk passed this morning, leaving at many as 1.88 million names unclaimed.
From June 2014 until 0500 UTC this morning, anyone who owned a third-level domain in zones such as .co.uk or .org.uk had rights to register the matching 2LD under .uk.
Those rights have all expired now, and all the unclaimed 2LDs will be returned to the available pool next month.
Four days ago, Nominet said that there were still 1.88 million rights that had not been exercised. That’s from the over 10 million 3LDs whose registrants were initially given rights.
In March, 3.2 million names were still unclaimed. It seems about 1.4 million names have been claimed, or expired, at the eleventh hour, almost all in June.
One way of looking at it is that the owners of almost one in five .co.uk domains either decided they didn’t want the matching 2LD, or were unaware that it was available.
But about half of the original domains with rights have since dropped, so the portion of current 3LD owners now at risk of confusion with their 2LD match could actually be more like four in 10.
At the end of May, 2,439,181 .uk domains had been registered (including non-grandfathered domains) and there were 9,729,224 names registered at the third level.
The 1.8 million unclaimed names will now be the subject of a landrush.
On July 1, Nominet will start releasing the names in batches, alphabetically.
Accredited registrars will start slamming the registry — Nominet has set up a separate set of EPP infrastructure purely for this expected onslaught — with requests to register the most-valuable names.
Some registrars have been taking pre-registrations and will auction any names they successfully claim to the customers who put in pre-orders.
After a week, any names not already claimed by registrars will be released to the public, again in batches, starting from July 8.
The system has been criticized by smaller registrars, many of which believe Nominet is giving its larger registrars a much better chance at winning the good names simply because they have deeper pockets.