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As GoDaddy loses .us to Identity Digital, some domains may be at risk
Identity Digital will replace rival GoDaddy Registry as manager of the .us ccTLD, but new contractual terms could put some registrants — and potentially even registrars — at risk.
The US National Telecommunications and Information Administration last week said it was giving the .us contract to Identity Digital after a lengthy bidding process.
No money is changing hands as a result of the deal, but the new registry will of course collect its wholesale fee whenever a domain is registered or renewed. That fee was $6.50 when GoDaddy’s current contract began in 2019.
There were 1.8 million registered .us domains at the end of July, according to the TLD’s web site. That’s down by about half a million names over the last 12 months.
That makes the contract worth roughly $11.7 million per year, based on the old renewal pricing. That’s immaterial to GoDaddy’s income statement, but
The new contract does not specify Identity Digital’s pricing, but it is longer and includes more detail than GoDaddy’s deal, especially when it comes to DNS abuse, which has been something of a focus for the US government of late.
There’s also much more focus on locality requirements, with Identity Digital now committed to audits to make sure .us registrants really do have a presence in the US as required by the rules.
.us is limited to US citizens and residents, and to businesses legally registered there. Identity Digital will now have to do a full audit of its current registration data, then monthly random spot-checks, to make sure registrants meet the rules.
The 256 current accredited .us registrars are also going to have to be re-accredited, and could lose their accreditations if they fail to meet the locality requirements, do not have the required security certifications, or even if they are insufficiently staffed to fully comply with their accreditation agreements. This could put a strain on smaller registrars.
The new contract was signed September 30 and runs for a maximum of seven years. There’s a nine-month transition period for the migration away from GoDaddy. The registrar re-accreditation program is expected to last a year.
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