.pn relaunches — you’ll never guess what they say it means

Two years after Nominet took over the management of the Pitcairn Islands’ ccTLD, .pn, the domain has modernized and is ready to relaunch, with a predictably inventive take on what the two-letter domain could, if you squint, represent.

.pn domains are to go on sale today from 1200 UTC, according to one of the registrars signed up to sell them, repurposed as a global generic along the same lines as .ai, .io, .tv and .co.

But what are the letters PN supposed to represent? Pretty much anything you want, provided it has a connection to cutting-edge technologies such as crypto, AI, or quantum computing.

Registrar EnCirca, which is strongly promoting the relaunch, suggests the following: Prompt Network, Protocol Native, Payment Node, Photonic Network, Peer Network, Private Node, Precision Numerics, Pioneer, and Panem.

(That last one is a reference to the fictional country from the popular Hunger Games books and movies. Some existing .pn domains are used for that purpose already.)

As far as I can tell, none of those backronyms is in common usage, but I guess it’s not impossible one or more could catch on. We seem to be in “professional web” rather than “artificial intelligence” territory here, however.

While .pn has been around since the 1990s, registration was a painful manual process. But since Nominet took over in 2023, the registry infrastructure and policy framework has been modernized.

The ccTLD now operates on an automated EPP platform and has a standard registration lifecycle that incorporates policies such as the UDRP, as well as Nominet quirks such as a prohibition on names that imply sexual violence.

Domains are available at the second level or third (under .co.pn, .org.pn and .net.pn) with no local presence requirements.

For Pitcairn, a British island territory in the Pacific with fewer than 40 (not a typo) inhabitants, the relaunch has the potential to be transformative, due to its tiny size and the relatively high registration fees.

The islands have a GDP of the equivalent of just $127,000, according to Wikipedia, much of which comes from selling postage stamps to overseas collectors.

Nominet is charging $100 a year at the second level and $50 at the third. EnCirca is charging $129 retail. While Pitcairn’s cut is not public, it seems likely only a few thousand names would need to be sold to double the territory’s GDP in a very short space of time.

“Premium pricing keeps speculative bulk registration out and maintains namespace quality,” EnCirca CEO Tom Barrett said.

Pitcairn is probably best-known for being the place where the mutineers from the eighteenth-century “mutiny on the Bounty” incident, made famous by the 1984 Mel Gibson movie, sought refuge with a group of Tahitians. Most residents today are descended from these original settlers.

EnCirca has put together a lengthy (if somewhat sanitized) history of the territory and the ccTLD at about.pn.

Comment Tagged: .pn, encirca, nominet, pitcairn

Unstoppable focuses on proper domains, admits crypto was “craze”

Unstoppable Domains is steering away from so-called “Web 3” blockchain-based naming to focus on the consensus DNS, according to a social media post from the company’s CEO.

Matt Gould tweeted on Twitter last week that the names were “part of the crypto craze in 2021” that “did not cross the chasm into mainstream usage”. Unstoppable will increase its focus on traditional domains, he wrote.

DNS domains now compose 90%+ of our business, and as we move to get several of our TLDs also listed in ICANN over the next few years our focus will continue to grow on the DNS and traditional internet market. We expect that 2-3 years from now DNS and the traditional web will be…

— Matthew Gould (@mattgould) March 16, 2026

The company’s web site now comes across like a traditional registrar. Blockchain names — once front-and-center — are still sold there, but as a non-default option in the storefront’s search results that describes such names as “wallet identifiers”.

Unstoppable says it has sold over four million blockchain names since it launched, in extensions such as .nft, .crypto and .wallet. Twitter users responding to Gould’s tweet wondered whether Unstoppable could now be described as a “grift”, “rug-pull” or “scam”.

The company has increasingly been moving towards real domains for some time, becoming accredited as an ICANN registrar in August 2024 and just last month receiving approval to act as a registry service provider in the new gTLD program.

Comment Tagged: blockchain, crypto, unstoppable

ICANN boss: no plans to scrap Oman meeting

ICANN currently has no plans to cancel its 2026 Annual General Meeting, which is due to take place in Muscat, Oman, later this year, according to CEO Kurt Lindqvist.

Speaking at the public forum at ICANN 85 in Mumbai today, Lindqvist responded to a speaker who expressed concerns about the ongoing US-Israel war against Iran, which has seen Iran retaliate against neighbors including Oman.

“We’re obviously aware of the situation, and we’re monitoring it. The Oman meeting is 7 months out, so it’s still quite a long time to go, and a lot of things can change. So, at the moment, we are planning for this to go ahead,” he said.

The Muscat meeting was originally planned for October last year, but was called off due to Israel’s attacks on Iran in June, which affected flight corridors in the region.

Lindqvist added that ICANN always has contingency plans in case a venue becomes inappropriate. Last year, the Muscat meeting was rescheduled to Dublin, Ireland.

It seems likely that if the hostilities in the Middle East have not calmed down by June, ICANN could well pull the plug on Muscat for a second year, giving meeting participants about four months to plan their travel.

Previously, ICANN has relocated meetings due to be held in Puerto Rico and Panama due to hurricane damage and the Zika virus, and several were held entirely online during the Covid-19 pandemic.

2 Comments Tagged: ICANN, icann 85, icann 87, war

China domains dip in 2026

Both of China’s ccTLD saw their domains under management slide in 2026, according to the latest biannual report from the local registry.

CNNIC said that .cn names ended the year at 20,768,082, down by almost 50,000 from the 20,768,082 names it reported a year earlier and down about 88,000 on its mid-year number.

The internationalized domain name .中国 (.xn--fiqs8s) also continued its downward trajectory, at 159,480 at the end of the year, compared to 165,265 at the end.

The IDN has been going down consistently every half for at least the last five years. Back in 2021, it had over 210,000 names. This in a country of 1.4 billion people.

Comment Tagged: .cn, cnnic

ICANN maps out new gTLD timeline

ICANN’s 85th public meeting kicked off in Mumbai at the weekend, the last community face-to-face before the next round of new gTLDs kicks off, and the Org took the time to spell out exactly what is expected to happen and when.

Surprisingly, given ICANN’s track record, it will hit its target of April 2026 to open the doors to applications. Unsurprisingly, given ICANN’s track record, it’s picked April 30 — the last possible day of its promised window — to do so.

The application window will remain open for 104 days. Applicants will have until August 12 to file their paperwork. It doesn’t matter when they hit submit; it’s not first-come, first-served.

Then, the process goes into quiet mode for at least two months while ICANN filters through the applications. If there’s about the same number of applications at the 2012 round — about 2,000 — ICANN reckons Reveal Day could come before ICANN 87, which begins in Muscat October 17.

So far, the timeline closely follows the 2012 round, but this time there’s a new wrinkle — applicants can change their gTLD strings to preselected “replacement strings” if they want to.

From Reveal Day, they’ll have 14 days to swap their strings if, for example, they find themselves in a contention set they don’t like the look of or if they get the vibe that they’re probably face objections.

After those two weeks are up, its String Confirmation day, expected some time in November. From that moment, the applicants are locked into their string of choice.

That’s also the day when the timer starts on the objections period, 104 days in which companies and organizations can object to applications based on criteria such as intellectual property rights, the public interest, and community rights.

Governments can also object on essentially any basis, as long as it’s well-articulated. Unilateral GAC Early Warnings are available, but a full consensus of the Governmental Advisory Committee would be needed to stand a chance at nuking an application outright.

The objection period should end some time next February. While that’s going on, some time in December, ICANN will conduct the Prioritization Draw, a lottery to decide the order in which applications will be processed.

The 2012 draw was important because the gTLDs that were first out of the traps had a measurable first-mover advantage in terms of speculative registrations. With hundreds of gTLDs now on the market, I believe it will be less important this time around.

After the draw, applicants will have to wait half a year before they are finally notified which contention sets, if any, they fit into, after the results of the String Similarity Review have been published.

ICANN has yet to select the panel for this review or create its detailed guidelines, but it’s expect to name it chosen vendor some time in Q2.

Comment Tagged: ICANN, icann 85, new gTLDs, next round

War disrupts ICANN 85

It seems a bit tasteless to whine about disrupted flights when the Middle-East is erupting into war; nevertheless, that’s the immediate issue facing would-be attendees at this week’s public ICANN meeting.

ICANN 85 is taking place at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai, India from this coming weekend.

While Mumbai is over 2,000km from Tehran, Iran has been attacking many neighbouring nations in retaliation for the ongoing US-Israeli bombardment, which has resulted in the closure of several airports as missiles, drones and fighter planes invade their airspace.

Some ICANN travellers, mainly those traveling west-to-east, will find that hub airports in Dubai or Bahrain are in their connections itinerary. Those flying Emirates will be particularly affected.

ICANN said in a statement at the weekend that 85 “will proceed as planned” and that would-be attendees feeling uncomfortable traveling can take advantage of online participation if they prefer.

The Org and its travel agent are together responsible for funding and arranging the travel of hundreds of participants, and ICANN said they were working to route travellers around the affected airspace.

2 Comments Tagged: .mumbai, ICANN, icann 85, iran, war

Namecheap abandons fight for .org price caps

Namecheap seems to have thrown in the towel in its long-running fight to get ICANN to cap the prices of .org and .info domain names.

The registrar terminated its Independent Review Process complaint against ICANN back in November, with the IRP panel formally closing the case December 16, according to documents ICANN published last week.

Namecheap said it “has decided to terminate these proceedings without prejudice”, meaning it would be free to re-file the IRP at a later date. The company and ICANN have agreed to pay their own costs.

It was the second Namecheap IRP related to ICANN’s decision to remove price caps from the .org and .info registry contracts when it renewed them in 2019, bringing the two gTLDs into line with almost all other registries.

Namecheap filed its first IRP in February 2020, and scored a stonking win in 2023, with the panel ruling that ICANN had breached its bylaws and behaved in an overly secretive manner when it approved the contract renewals.

But the panel offered up remedies that gave ICANN a lot of interpretative leeway and important did not mandate the reintroduction of price caps. The second, now-defunct IRP saw Namecheap trying to force ICANN to undo its price caps decision.

It also sued ICANN in Los Angeles two years ago for essentially the same purpose, but it lost the case last July.

Since the price caps were lifted, non-profit Public Interest Registry has not raised .org prices, while for-profit Identity Digital has raised .info prices from $10.84 in 2019 to $19 today.

Comment Tagged: ICANN, identity digital, irp, lawsuit, namecheap, pir, price caps

Identity Digital acquires another gTLD

Identity Digital has bulked out its already substantial portfolio of gTLDs, taking over the ICANN registry contract for another 2012-round string earlier this month.

The company is now running .onl via a newish affiliate called Jolly Host, according to ICANN records. It had been managed by Germany-based iRegistry, the original applicant.

.onl — short for “online” but with substantially fewer registrations than .online — had just shy of 24,000 registered names in its zone file today, but has been experiencing fairly consistent growth over the last few years.

It had 19,787 domains under management at the end of October, a lifetime peak.

Some of the growth may be due to the sub-$4 first-year fees currently being charged by some registrars. I believe the registry annual renewal fee is around $10, but some registrars mark that up to $25-$35.

.onl appears in the storefronts of most major registrars already.

1 Comment Tagged: .onl, ICANN, identity digital, iregistry, new gTLDs

Seven dead registrars on the out

When a registrar stops paying its registry partners, they tend to be cut off relatively quickly. ICANN takes a bit longer.

That seems to be what’s happening to a collection of accredited registrars under the same ownership, which have been given just a few weeks to pay over a year’s worth of overdue ICANN fees or lose their ability to sell names.

ICANN Compliance is gunning for Haveaname, InstantNames, MisterNIC, NetEstate, Neudomain, OpenName, and TopSystem for non-payment of fees going back at least to September 2024.

Probably not coincidentally, that’s the same month that all seven registrars abruptly lost all of their domains under management — not much more than 1,000 per registrar — and apparently lost its .com accreditation.

According to the ICANN notice, Compliance spent the last few months of 2024 unsuccessfully attempting to get in touch with the registrars, before ignoring the case for the whole of 2025 and only returning to it this month.

The registrar web sites are all simple placeholders, with broken SSL certs, doing the bare minimum to stay in compliance with the ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement without actually attempting to sell any domains.

While almost all ICANN Compliance breach notices contain an allegation of unpaid fees, this is a rare instance where the allegations stop there; there’s no claim of any other breach.

Comment Tagged: breach, compliance, ICANN

Sav.com owner takes over .radio gTLD

The .radio gTLD appears to have changed hands, with a young registry affiliated with Sav.com taking over the reins.

ICANN documentation shows that Digity, a company led by Sav CEO Anthos Chrysanthou, took over the registry contract for the gTLD last month.

The original registry was the European Broadcasting Union, the entity behind the popular Eurovision Song Contest (.eurovision also exists, but is not used, with the EBU using a .vote domain during its annual broadcast).

Digity is already the contracted registry for .case, a former dot-brand it acquired from CentralNic a few years ago.

Apparently intended to be repurposed as a namespace for the legal profession, .case is yet to properly launch and has just a few dozen domains under management.

.radio, by contrast, if not exactly thriving in volume terms, is actually being sold and used, with about 3,000 DUM at a price point of just under $400 a year at the low end.

Some registration restrictions and pricing variations apply, and the gTLD does not have particularly broad registrar coverage.

British readers may be interested to learn that one of the highest-profile .radio domains belongs to oddball former DJ and TV host Noel Edmonds.

Comment Tagged: .case, .radio, acquisition, digity, ebu, new gTLDs