Domain Name Association opens membership
The new Domain Name Association, which hopes to represent the interests of the domain name industry as a whole, has opened its doors to new members.
The DNA formed in January, named an interim board in April, and has spent the last several months conducting outreach and establishing its corporate structure, goals and membership rules.
Membership prices range from $1,000 to $50,000, with the make-up of the final board (estimated to be fewer than 20 directors) determined by which companies pay for the more expensive membership tiers.
Paying $50,000 will guarantee you a seat on the board, for example, while paying $5,000 makes your company eligible for, but not guaranteed, one of two reserved seats.
Speaking at the Digital Marketing & gTLD Strategy Congress in London two weeks ago, interim DNA chair Adrian Kinderis made no bones about the fact that the DNA is pay-to-play; it’s “not a democracy”.
It’s a trade group in the usual sense, in other words, borrowing nothing from ICANN’s multistakeholder model.
That said, ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade encouraged its creation and ICANN seems to generally support its goal.
That goal is to represent the entire domain name industry — registrars, registries, resellers, etc. Its mission statement is pretty succinct:
Promote the interest of the domain name industry by advocating the use, adoption, and expansion of domain names as the primary tool for users to navigate the Internet.
Promoting new gTLDs is its first priority.
The DNA operates two web sites: thedna.org for its members and whatdomain.org for internet end users.
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The only issue I see with the DNA so far is the strong bias towards new gTLDs. Which is fine in NTAG, but not every domain industry player is a new gTLD industry player. I noticed Adrian trying to also gather ccTLDs initially, which I found a good way to start a domain industry association, but that tone doesn’t seem to hold.