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.bible-thumping anti-porn registrar goes titsup
Kevin Murphy,
August 5, 2020, 10:43:57 (UTC),
Domain Registrars
An American registrar that prided itself on promoting .bible domain names and refusing to sell to pornographers has gone out of business.
PurityNames, which called itself “the only company that refuses to profit from pornography”, ceased operations July 27 and has had its accreditation agreement with ICANN voluntarily terminated.
In a notice on its web site, the company blamed its demise on “recent increases in regulatory requirements and costs as well as economic headwinds”.
Founded by seasoned ICANN policy expert Jim Prendergast, the company’s shutdown appears to have been handled the right way.
PurityNames’ small customer base has been transferred to 20-year-old Israeli registrar Domain The Net, and pre-paid hosting packages will be honored, according to the registrar.
The company was founded in 2011 in order to give registrants a “family-friendly” venue for registering names. It refused to deal with not only porn but also gambling and other “immoral” services.
It also actively promoted .bible domain names. Prendergast is an ICANN policy consultant for the .bible registry.
But apparently there was not much demand for either. As of March, PurityNames had 288 domain names under management, down from a 2015 peak of 536, and only 10 .bible registrations.
Best domain industry news headline of the year.
Old Scratch has been having a great year.