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Nominet takes over failed .desi

Kevin Murphy, October 19, 2023, Domain Registries

Nominet has been picked as the Emergency Back-End Registry Operator for failed gTLD .desi, the company confirmed today.

The gig means the .uk registry will be responsible for keeping .desi ticking over — handling DNS, EPP, Whois etc — while ICANN looks for a successor registry.

.desi was operated by mom-n-pop outfit Desi Networks of Maryland on a Team Internet back-end until it threw in the towel this July, having failed to sell more than a handful of domains.

The term “desi” refers to the cultures of the Indian subcontinent and its diaspora, giving an addressable market well over a billion people. But there were only 1,743 registered domains at the last count but the only active sites that show up in Google are porn.

It’s the second gTLD to go into special measures after .wed, which Nominet is also handling. ICANN has three accredited EBERO providers, the others being CNNIC of China and CIRA in Canada.

While .wed has only one active registrar and barely 30 registered domains, .desi has almost 300 registrars, about 70 of which have domains.

A second new gTLD has FAILED and will be sold off

Kevin Murphy, July 26, 2023, Domain Registries

A second commercial, non-branded new gTLD has thrown in the towel after failing to sell many domains and ICANN will seek out a new registry operator to take over.

Desi Networks has told ICANN it wants to unilaterally terminate its contract to run .desi, which as of the end of March had 1,425 domains under management after almost a decade in the root. It peaked at 4,330 domains in December 2018.

ICANN said it will invoke its Registry Transition Process to find a new registry operator. That’s essentially an auction, though if Desi Networks has so far failed to find a buyer privately one wonders how much attention it will attract.

The term “desi” broadly refers to people of South Asian residence or descent, usually Indians and the Indian diaspora. With over 1.5 billion potential registrants, on paper it looks like a winner.

But a Google search for .desi sites reveals just a handful of active domains, all related to porn sites.

The registry seems to have given up on approving zone file requests some time last year, so I have no insight into the kinds of domains currently registered, but ICANN says they are registered to third parties.

None of the registry’s own web sites, save nic.desi, appear to be working, and its Twitter account has been dormant since 2018.

The failure of the business doesn’t appear to be from a lack of channel opportunities. The gTLD is available through most of the major registrars, according to transaction reports, and runs on CentralNic’s back-end.

ICANN said it may transition .desi to an Emergency Back-End Registry Operator while it sorts everything out.

The Registry Transition Process has been invoked just once before, in 2021, after Atrgon’s .wed failed. That gTLD has been using an EBERO, Nominet, for six years.

Most registries that have terminated their gTLD contracts have been dot-brands with no third-party registrants. ICANN just removes those from the root.

ICANN outs two more deadbeat new gTLDs

Kevin Murphy, December 12, 2018, Domain Services

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.