ISOC New York challenges Neustar’s .nyc contract
The New York chapter of the Internet Society has called upon the city to delay the renewal of Neustar’s contract to run the .nyc gTLD, citing numerous concerns about how it is being managed.
In a letter (pdf) to Mayor Bill de Blasio, the group calls for a “town hall” and community consultation and for the city to “make appropriate adjustments” before the contract is renewed.
Its beef appears to be what it sees as .nyc’s lackluster performance in the market and the lack of promised community engagement.
The ISOC-NY letter contains a list of over a dozen “observations and nitpicks”.
These include a decline in .nyc registration volume, that fact that most .nyc names are parked, and the fact that Whois privacy is banned from the gTLD.
Neustar’s current contract is due to be renewed March, according to the letter.
(This post was updated February 8 to correct the expiry date of Neustar’s contract.)
I read the letter to say that the resolution was passed on January 31, not the contract expired then.
You’re correct, thanks. Story corrected.
According to John there are only 6% active sites on .NYC domains.
http://www.hosterstats.com/nyc-website-usage-survey.php
Thought .NYC would have bee more successful honestly. It’s three letters and New-York City is one of the most famous cities in the world.
I kind of agree with the Internet Society of New York. The entire marketing and plan for .NYC should be re-thought.
Note that their suggestion for .nyc is for an even more controlled namespace… which would indeed have more % of active sites, by having less sites. Where is the point where this brings higher relevance and and where does this prevent spontaneous usage ?
In generic keyword searches conducted this week on Sedo, I’ve noticed that many of the most expensive domains appear under the .NYC TLD. Lots of $30k prices for .NYC domains amidst $3-4k prices for domains with other TLDs. So there’s obviously considerable speculative activity going on with .NYC domains, much of it wildly unrealistic.