Verisign will kill off 37 Kevins (and 22,000 others), complaint claims

Verisign’s plans to shut down a bunch of legacy services in the .name gTLD has been challenged by a registrant who believes he will lose his domains and email addresses if the registry goes ahead.

Doytchin Spiridonov, who works for Bulgarian registrar Dom.bg, has filed a Request for Reconsideration with ICANN, asking it to reverse its approval of Verisign’s Registry Service Evaluation Process requests that would enable it to turn off services that have been running for over 20 years.

As I reported in May, Verisign wants to stop selling third-level domains and related email services in .name, bringing the zone into line with virtually ever other gTLD, and delete existing names and emails in the process.

Spiridonov, who owns at least three third-level names, did the legwork on the .name zone file and discovered 22,288 domains would be affected. That includes 37 of my fellow Kevins!

His RfR (pdf) makes the case that ICANN’s approval of Verisign’s request was pretty opaque, involving private meetings between company and Org over several months.

“The approvals may adversely affect my ability to continue holding these registrations, may require migration to alternative services, may result in financial loss associated with prepaid registration periods, and may cause operational disruption and loss of continuity of internet identity associated with the affected registrations,” he wrote.

He further claims that Verisign misrepresented the impact of the changes in its RSEP, in which it stated that “There will not be any effect on the life cycle of domain names”.

Spiridonov says that the deletion of 22,000 domains makes this claim plainly untrue.

His RfR will be handled by ICANN’s board of directors.

Comment Tagged: .name, bgc, dom.bg, reconsideration, rfr, verisign

Google names the dates for .fly launch

Google seems to have accelerated its launch plans for .fly, one of the 2012-round gTLDs it’s been sitting on for over a decade.

The company’s registry division has notified ICANN that it plans to open its mandatory sunrise period for .fly on September 1 and keep it open until November 9.

General availability for the gTLD, which according to its 2012 application will be open to all with no eligibility restrictions, seems to have been scheduled for November 10.

Earlier documentation filed with ICANN showed early 2027 launch dates.

The original application states that the namespace is intended for, as you might expect, airlines and the travel industry. As such, it would compete with the likes of .travel and .aero.

Google has already registered get.fly to itself, but the name does not yet appear to resolve.

Comment Tagged: .fly, google, ICANN, launch, new gTLDs, sunrise

Harassment down, bitchiness up at ICANN

ICANN’s Ombuds dealt with 50% more cases in its last-reported year, with most of the growth attributable to community members who just can’t seem to get along.

In a recently published annual report (pdf), covering the period to the end of June 2025 (yes, it really is published a whole year after the fact), the Ombuds said that it opened 248 tickets in the year.

But 212 of those — basically the same as the previous year — were ruled “out of scope”, perhaps because they were requests for information or help rather that outright complaints.

The remaining 36, up from 24 in the prior year, were ruled “in-scope”. Eight of those cases were complaints.

The Ombuds splits cases into two buckets — “unfairness” and “interpersonal and relational”. Unfairness cases were flat at 16, but down as a percentage from 67% to 44% due to the interpersonal category growing from seven cases to 20.

The interpersonal bucket refers to how community members interact in their working groups and such. It covers harassment, conflict, uncivil language and behavior.

Combined, cases concerning these behaviors accounted for 56% of the total, but the Ombuds reported that only two of those were at the level of claims of harassment.

Comment Tagged: harassment, ICANN, ombuds

A free, ethical new gTLD? Shurely shome mishtake

Another new gTLD applicant has revealed its plans, this time for a namespace where domains are given away for free and the enemy is Big Tech.

The Human-Centered Computing Foundation, a non-profit founded in Colorado last November, says it plans to apply for .self in the current ongoing ICANN application round.

It says it has already been approved under ICANN’s Applicant Support Program, meaning its application costs will be deeply discounted from the $227,000 standard base fee.

The organization has published little information about its plans, other than to say .self will be “designed and implemented from the ground up to support self-hosting”.

HCCF says it opposes the “prevailing economic models of the digital age — surveillance capitalism and entrapping SaaS platforms” that “prioritize corporate shareholder value over the fundamental needs, privacy, and autonomy of the individual.”

Because the domains will be free, domain investors are not welcome.

The organization’s web site lists Riley O’Donnell and Lucas Silva as CEO and COO respectively.

A search on DI’s Stringtel tool show domains ending in “self” occur about as frequently as existing gTLDs “contractors”, “bike” and “tattoo”, with “yourself” and “myself” counting for about half of the volume.

Comment Tagged: .self, hccf, Human-Centered Computing Foundation, ICANN, new gTLDs

Blacknight acquired by Your.Online

Blacknight Solutions, Ireland’s first ICANN-accredited registrar, has been bought by Your.Online for an undisclosed sum.

The registrar joins dozens of brands, mainly but not exclusively in the hosting space, under the Your.Online umbrella.

Your.Online describes itself as a “group of founder-led digital service providers”, and as such Blacknight founders Michele Neylon and Paul Kelly are expected to stick around in their current leadership roles.

Neylon said on social media that the existing staff will also be retained and that customers should not notice anything different due to the transaction.

Other registrar brands in the group include Gandi, Heart Internet, and DI sponsor Realtime Register.

Your.Online formed a few years ago from the merger of Gandi and Total Webhosting Solutions.

Comment Tagged: acquisitions, blacknight, your.online

“Bulletproof” registrar gets an ICANN bollocking

ICANN has slapped an intensely privacy-focused registrar that compares its stance on takedowns to Elon Musks with a lengthy breach-of-contract notice, claiming that the company is disregarding legitimate abuse reports for no good reason.

Estonia-based Fewmoretaps, which changed its brand to Trustname.com not long after its accreditation was approved in early 2024, has been friendly to malware distributors that use its services, according to ICANN.

The breach notice claims that Trustname, after it had discovered that an abuse report was valid and that one of its customers’ domains was being used to spread malware, did not suspend the domain as required.

Rather, it gave the registrant a three-day headsup to move their domain to another registrar, according to ICANN.

It additionally ignored multiple abuse reports, often for spurious reasons, the notice claims, often only taking action on abusive domains after ICANN Compliance itself got it touch.

Trustname says it is a “registrar built for businesses in competitive niches that often face false or bad-faith abuse reports” and makes hay out of the fact that it offers “bulletproof” privacy by masking registrants details behind two different proxy services located in different jurisdictions.

While the company’s web site claims ad nauseam that its services are not to be used for illegal purposes such as child abuse material and opioid sales, it boldly states that it “disregards” copyright infringement notices.

“Like Elon Musk, we have a strong aversion to individuals who exploit the DMCA, as we believe it lacks legal authority for the vast majority of the world’s population,” the site states.

IP matters are not covered by ICANN contracts, which defined abuse as malware, pharming, phishing and a subset of spam, of course.

Trustname’s site states that it will only take action against domains in “extreme scenarios”.

Such scenarios include “using your website to host illegal content (that we have confirmed after thorough investigations) and getting court orders from all three jurisdictions.”

The three jurisdictions are the US and Saint Kitts & Nevis, where its proxy partners are located, and its home nation of Estonia. Saint Kitts-based Harakiri (Perfect Privacy LLC) was specifically chosen because court orders are hard to come by there.

The company additionally states, in what could be interpreted as an admission of guilt by ICANN Compliance standards:

We will never take any action against a domain name simply because someone filed a complaint – even if your report indicates a violation of our terms. We will only be obligated to take action when we get the relevant court orders.

Trustname, which had fewer than 1,500 gTLD domains under management at the last count, has been given until July 1 to come back into compliance or risk losing its accreditation.

Comment Tagged: abuse, breach, compliance, ICANN, trustname

Team Internet says domains business sale imminent

Team Internet expects to be able to announce the sale of its domains business in the next several weeks, coming at the end of a turbulent 2025 that saw revenue, and its share price, tumble.

The company — home to registry and registrar brands including CentralNic, BrandShelter, Moniker and domaindiscount24 — said of its Domains, Identity & Software (DIS) segment in a recent trading statement:

Discussions continue with selected parties regarding a potential disposal of the DIS segment, which the Board will pursue where it delivers fair value. While there can be no certainty that any transaction will be agreed, or as to its terms, the Board expects the outcome of the strategic review, including any agreement relating to a potential disposal of DIS, to be announced in the first half of Q3. Subject to customary conditions and regulatory approvals, the Board expects any resulting transaction to complete during 2026.

That suggests a deal could be announced anywhere from this week to mid-August.

Team Internet got badly burned by Google after the advertising giant changed the way it allows parking companies to monetize domains in early 2025. Its revenue per thousand page views was cut in half, down by 51% to $34 million last year.

The company is now talking about a legal case against Google (which it did not name directly), saying it is “pursuing a substantial damages claim against a major technology company, arising from anti-competitive conduct”.

In its audited 2025 results, announced Friday, the company said its DIS segment was down 4% to $194.6 million, with adjusted EBITDA up 10% at $21.4 million as it pursued a strategy of squeezing more profit out of each customer rather than pushing volume.

The Search segments, most affected by Google’s antics, saw its top line down 59% at $222 million, with EBITDA down 84% at $9 million. Overall, Team Internet saw revenue down 40% at $481.9 million, with EBITDA down 54% at $42.7 million.

The company also disclosed that it has had trouble meeting its financial commitments to its lenders, but that it has come to arrangement to have the banks forgive the transgressions.

It plans to either refinance or use the proceeds from the DIS disposal to service its debts.

Comment Tagged: acquisition, earnings, financials, google, results, team internet

Two-letter domain auction raises half a billion (dong)

Vietnam’s domain registry reportedly raised VND 557 million selling 31 two-character .vn domains at auction late last month.

That works out to about an average of about $685 per successfully sold domain, not a lot for a two-character name even in a relatively unknown (in the west) ccTLD.

The auction was led by ok.vn, which went for the dong equivalent of $4,170. Other sales included hi.vn ($2,281), mb.vn ($1,445), f5.vn for ($1,365), 3m.vn ($836) and 5s.vn ($684), according to Viet Nam News.

It was the second batch of names to be auctioned by VNNIC, following a round in March that was led by the sale of mb.vn for over $60,000.

Comment Tagged: .vn, auction, two-character, vnnic

Another country jumps on the .ai bandwagon

Another Asian registry has added a .ai option at the third level of its ccTLD, seeking to capitalize on the growth of the artificial intelligence industry.

PANDI, the registry for Indonesia’s .id domains, said that it is launching .ai.id domain names this month.

The launch is coming in phases, with a trademarks-only sunrise period currently underway and running until July 2.

A month-long grandfathering period will follow from July 13, with registrants of existing .id names able to pick up their exact-match .ai.id equivalents.

From August 24 there’ll be a landrush period, with premium pricing, which runs for one month. General availability is slated for October 5.

PANDI already offers a multitude of third-level options under .id, of which .co.id is the most popular. Other options include .go.id, .my.id, .web.id, as well as vanilla second-level names.

It’s the second registry to offer .ai at the third level since the AI boom began, following Korea’s KISA, which started selling .ai.kr names, among others, last year.

Comment Tagged: .ai.id, .id, ai, pandi

ICANN lays out new rules for navel-gazing

ICANN is set to cut back on the amount of navel-gazing it carries out, dramatically scaling back how often it reviews its own structure and performance.

The community’s unashamedly meta “Review of Reviews” has produced fruit on schedule, with a set of principles set to be opened for discussion at the ICANN 86 meeting in Seville, Spain which kicks off this weekend.

The Cross Community Group that came up with the new framework would see some reviews that are currently mandated by ICANN’s bylaws eliminated altogether and others put on a substantially longer cycle.

The CCG is recommending that only two reviews are mandatory, the Accountability & Transparency Review, which would occur every five years, and an ICANN Structural Review which would run every 15 years instead of the current five.

The Registration Directory Service Review, which according to the bylaws has to review Whois policy every five years, does not appear to feature in the new recommendations. Either does the Competition, Consumer Trust and Consumer Choice Review.

The five-yearly Security, Stability, and Resiliency Review would now be treated as an “On-Demand Review”, a new category of review that can be called for by the community if a very high voting threshold is met.

The proposals already have their detractors among the community’s constituency groups.

The Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group has concerns that they would favor highly resourced interest groups at the expense of marginalized communities, for example, while the Intellectual Property Constituency believes eliminating some of the reviews poses a risk of DNS abuse and IP infringement.

There will be a session on the proposals in Seville on Monday.

Comment Tagged: ICANN, review of reviews