ICANN gives the nod to Donuts-Rightside merger

ICANN has given its consent to the acquisition of Rightside by rival new gTLD registry Donuts, according to the companies.
The nod means that one barrier to the $213 million deal has been lifted.
Rightside, which is listed on Nasdaq, still needs the majority of its shareholders to agree to the deal and to satisfy other customary closing conditions.
ICANN approval does not mean the organization has passed any judgment about whether the deal is pro-competition or anything like that, it just means it’s checked that the buyer has the funds and the nous to run the TLDs in question and is compliant with various policies.
All new gTLD Registry Agreements given ICANN the right to consent — or not — to the contract being assigned to a third party.
The acquisition was announced last month at the end of a turbulent year or so for Rightside.

Junk drop cuts .xyz in half, .top claims volume crown

The .xyz gTLD has seen its zone file halve in size, as millions of free and cheap domains were not renewed.
The former volume leader among new gTLDs started this month with a tad over 5.2 million domains in its zone.
But its July 17 zone contained 2.5 million, much less than half as many, DI analysis shows.
The precipitous decline means that Chinese-run gTLD .top, increasingly notorious as a go-to TLD for spammers, is now literally at the top of the league table, when you measure new gTLDs by zone file volume, with 2.6 million names.
The primary reason for .xyz losing so many names is of course the expiration of most of the domains that were sold for just $0.01 — or given away for free — in the first few days of June 2016, and the aggressive promotional pricing on offer for the remainder of that month.
On May 30, 2016, there were just under 2.8 million names in the .xyz zone. By July 1, 2016, that number had topped 6.2 million, an increase of 3.4 million over a single month.
That was .xyz’s peak. The zone has been in gradual decline ever since.
Domains generally take 45 days to drop, so it’s entirely possible XYZ.com will see further losses over the next month or so.
There’s nothing unusual about seeing a so-called “junk drop” a year after a TLD launches or runs a free-domains promotion. It’s been well-understood for over a decade and has been anticipated for .xyz for over a year.
But compounding its problems, the .xyz registry appears to still be banned in China, where a substantial portion of its former customer base is located.
The company disclosed over two months ago that it had a “temporary” problem that had seen its license to sell domains via Chinese registrars suspended.
The ban was related to XYZ falling out with its original “real name verification” provider, ZDNS, which was tasked with verifying the identities of Chinese registrants per local government regulations.
I’ve never been able to confirm with either party the cause of this split, but everyone else involved in the Chinese market I’ve asked has told me it related to a dispute over money.
Regardless, two months later the major Chinese registrars I checked today still appear to not be carrying .xyz names.
XYZ has meanwhile signed up with alternative Chinese RNV provider Tele-info, and just three days ago submitted the necessary paperwork (pdf) with ICANN to have the move approved as a registry service under its contract.
In that request, XYZ said the new RNV service “will allow XYZ to reenter certain domain name markets”, suggesting that it has not yet regained Chinese government approval to operate there.

auDA explains secretive new regime in bid to save chair

auDA has explained why it has refused to put controversial new policies to a vote, as it recommended that members vote to save the job of chairman Stuart Benjamin.
In a letter to members published this week, the .au ccTLD administrator said it was not legally obliged to allow members to vote on its directors’ decisions to stop publishing their meeting minutes and to gag members from bad-mouthing auDA in the press.
As we reported earlier in the week, a group of domainers and others had signed a petition calling for four resolutions to be put to a vote of auDA’s members (largely domainers and registrars), but auDA only accepted one of them.
That resolution was to fire Benjamin. Members will vote July 31.
The new letter (pdf) seeks to explain why the other three resolutions were rejected.
The campaigners, organized by domainer/blogger Ned O’Meara at Grumpy.com.au, had demanded that auDA reverse its new policy of not publishing the minutes of its board meetings.
In response, auDA stated that it is under no legal obligation under Aussie corporation law or its own constitution to publish minutes and therefore under no obligation to put this policy to a member vote.
It did, however, agree to reinstate previously published and deleted minutes of meetings up to February 2017.
The Grumpy gang also wanted auDA to put is new member code of conduct, apparently unilaterally imposed by its board this May, to a member vote.
The code of conduct contains some innocuous policies about having a zero tolerance for members who abuse and harass auDA staff, but it also prevents members from saying bad things about the organization in public.
Members must agree:

In any forum, including in the media, where acting as an auDA member or identifiable as an auDA member, I will conduct myself in a manner that will not bring the organisation, Directors or staff, into disrepute.

This basically would prevent any member from criticizing auDA when talking to a journalist, under pain of having their membership suspended or revoked. Clearly uncool.
In auDA’s new letter, CEO Cameron Boardman explains that the ability of the board to suspend memberships has been removed from the policy, in response to feedback. Memberships can still be revoked by the board, however.
This U-turn appears to be a legal technicality designed to ensure that the policy does not change the organization’s constitution — which allows the board to revoke but not suspend memberships — and therefore does not need to be put to a member vote.
Finally, the Grumpy coalition had asked for auDa’s decision to create its own in-house registry — and to stop outsourcing its back-end to Neustar — to be put to a vote.
Boardman’s letter says that this decision was “a matter of management exclusively vested in the directors” and therefore legally not something it has to put out for member approval.
O’Meara and company were given the chance to recant on their fourth resolution — that Benjamin be fired — and apparently had indicated initially that they wished to do so.
However, they were so appalled by Boardman’s letter than they decided to go ahead with it anyway.
auDA’s recommendation that Benjamin keeps his job can be read in full here.

Second-level .ke domains go on sale this month

Kenya has become the latest ccTLD to jump on the second-level domain bandwagon.
From this month, registrants will be able to purchase example.ke, rather than having to select from third-level domains such as example.co.ke or example.or.ke, according to the registry.

We have introduced Second Level .Ke Domain name space, Roll out date 23 rd July 2017. Secure yours early enough .Be part of #dotke #sldKe pic.twitter.com/6rFZrXIc2K

— KeNIC (@KenicTLD) June 29, 2017

KeNIC becomes the latest ccTLD registry to give customers the SLD option after the UK, New Zealand and Australia, which all backpedaled historic 3LD-only policies in order to remain relevant in an increasingly crowded TLD market.
Unlike previous launches, existing 3LD .ke registrants do not appear to have first right of refusal for the matching SLD, judging by the new policy (pdf).
The launch will begin July 23 with a 30-day sunrise period for trademark owners. This will be followed by a landrush period of 30 days.
Currently, pricing for co.ke domains in Kenyan shillings is in the same ballpark as the US dollar cost of a .com domain.
There are reportedly around 62,000 .ke domains currently registered.

Domainers want the head of auDA’s chair

Disgruntled domainers have managed to arrange for a vote on whether auDA chair Stuart Benjamin should be fired.
auDA, the .au ccTLD administrator, has been under fire for many months from registrants who believe the organization is being managed in an increasingly erratic and secretive manner.
Now, a campaign and petition at Grumpy.com.au, run by Domainer.com.au publisher Ned O’Meara, has led to auDA calling a special meeting July 31 with a single resolution on the agenda:

That Stuart Benjamin be removed as a director of the Company with immediate effect.

Benjamin will therefore lose his job with simple majority votes of both classes of auDA members — “supply” class, meaning registrars, and “demand” class, meaning registrants.
O’Meara blogged yesterday that he believes there is “a slightly less than even chance” of the resolution being carried due to the possible lack of votes from supply class members.
But auDA rejected as legally “invalid” three additional resolutions that had been proposed.
Grumpy members had also wanted auDA to restore all of its board’s meeting minutes that were inexplicably deleted from the organization’s web site.
They’d wanted a recently instituted member code of conduct to be scrapped, rewritten, and then put to members for a vote.
The code of conduct bans “harassment” and “bullying” of auDA staff, but it also prevents members from talking to the media about auDA in disparaging terms.
Finally, they’d also wanted auDA to abandon its plan to build an in-house registry infrastructure (replacing current provider Neustar) without first putting the plan to a member vote.
But all of these resolutions have been taken off the table on the basis of unspecified “legal advice” provided to auDA.
According to O’Meara and others, dissatisfaction with the organization has been brewing for some time, ever since late 2015 when Benjamin was brought in as a “demand” class director and appointed chair, only to be quickly dismissed and immediately reinstated as an “independent” director and reappointed chair.
In March 2016, 16-year CEO Chris Disspain was fired and replaced by Cameron Boardman.
I’m told auDa has been hemorrhaging staff for months — 10 of its 13 employees have apparently left the organization this year.

.blog renewal prices will not go up, registry promises

Knock Knock Whois There, the .blog registry, has promised not to raise its wholesale fees on existing registrations.
The company, which is affiliated with WordPress, seems to have made the move in response to ongoing registrar discomfort following Uniregistry’s plan to significant raise the price of several of its new gTLDs (which has since been backpedaled).
The promise has been baked into the Registry-Registrar Agreement under which all of its registrars can sell .blog names.
The new RRA reads (with the new text in italics):

5.1.1. Registrar agrees to pay Registry Operator or its designee in accordance with the fee schedule set forth in Exhibit A for initial and renewal registrations and other services provided by Registry Operator to Registrar (collectively, “Fees”). Registry Operator reserves the right, from time to time, to modify the Fees in a manner consistent with ICANN policies and Registry Policies. However, once a domain is registered, Registry Operator will not modify the Renewal Fee of that domain.

This of course leaves the door open for KKWT to increase the price of a new registration, but it seems renewal prices are frozen.
I believe the current wholesale .blog fee starts at $16 per year.
The new RRA also adds ICANN-mandated language concerning the Uniform Rapid Suspension policy and a clarification about registrar legal indemnifications, KKWT said.

.net price increases approved

Verisign has been given the right to continue to raise the wholesale price of .net domains.
It now seems likely the price charged to registrars will top $15 by 2023.
ICANN’s board of directors at the weekend approved the renewal of the .net Registry Agreement, which gives Verisign the right increase its prices by 10% per year for the six years of the contract.
Assuming the company exercises all six options — and there’s no reason to assume it will not — the price of a .net would be $15.27 by the time the contract expires, $0.75 of which would be paid to ICANN in fees.
There was some negative public comment (pdf) about the increases, largely from domainers and those representing domainers, but the ICANN board saw nothing to persuade it to change the terms of the contract.
In notes appended to its resolution, the board stated:

the Board understands that the current price cap provisions in Verisign’s Registry Agreements, including in the .NET Registry Agreement, evolved historically to address various market factors in cooperation with constituencies beyond ICANN including the Department of Commerce. During the negotiations for the renewal, Verisign did not request to alter the pricing cap provisions, the parties did not negotiate these provisions and the provisions remain changed from the previous agreement. The historical 10% price cap was arguably included to allow the Registry Operator to increase prices to account for inflation and increased costs/investments and to take into account other market forces but were not dictated solely by ICANN.

(I assume the word “changed” in that quote should have read “unchanged”.)
Unlike contract renewals for other pre-2012 gTLDs, the .net contract does not include any of the new gTLD program’s rights protection mechanisms, such as the Uniform Rapid Suspension policy.
ICANN explained this disparity by saying these mechanisms are not consensus policies and that it has no right to impose them on legacy gTLD registry operators.

India to have SIXTEEN ccTLDs

While most countries are content to operate using a single ccTLD, India is to up its count to an unprecedented 16.
It already has eight, but ICANN’s board of directors at the weekend approved the delegation of an additional eight.
The new ccTLDs, which have yet to hit the root, are .ಭಾರತ, .ഭാരതം, .ভাৰত, .ଭାରତ, .بارت, .भारतम्, .भारोत, and .ڀارت.
If Google Translate and Wikipedia can be trusted, these words all mean “India” in, respectively, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Odia, Arabic, Nepali, Hindi and Sindhi.
They were all approved under ICANN’s IDN ccTLD Fast Track program and will not operate under ICANN contract.
India already has seven internationalized domain name versions of its ccTLD in seven other scripts, along with its vanilla ASCII .in.
National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) will be ccTLD manager for the whole lot.
India may have as many as 122 languages, according to Wikipedia, with 30 spoken by more than a million people.

As .boots self-terminates, ICANN will not redelegate it

The dot-brand .boots may become the first single-dictionary-word gTLD to be taken off the market, as The Boots Company told ICANN it no longer wishes to be a registry.
Boots, the 168-year-old British pharmacy chain, told ICANN in April that it is unilaterally terminating its Registry Agreement for .boots and ICANN opened it up for comment this week.
As with the 22 self-terminating dot-brands before it, .boots was unloved and unused, with just the solitary, ICANN-mandated nic.boots in its zone file.
Boots, as well as being a universally known brand name in the UK and Ireland, is of course a generic dictionary word representing an unrelated class of goods (ie footwear).
It’s the first dying dot-brand to have this kind of dual use, making it potentially modestly attractive as a true generic TLD.
However, because it’s currently a dot-brand with no third-party users, it will not be redelegated to another registry.
Under Specification 13 of the Registry Agreement, which gives dot-brands special rights, ICANN has the ability to redelegate dot-brands, but only if it’s in the public interest to do so. That’s clearly not the case in this instance.
These rules also state that ICANN is not allowed to delegate .boots to any other company for a period of two years after the contract ends.
Given that there’s no chance of ICANN delegating any gTLDs in the next two years, this has no real impact. Perhaps, if the ICANN community settles on a rolling gTLD application process in future, this kind of termination may be of more interest.

Forget emojis, you can buy Egyptian hieroglyph .com domains

Call them the Emojis of the Ancient World.
Egyptian hieroglyphs were once the cutting edge of written communication, and it turns out Verisign lets you register .com domains using them.
Internationalized domain names expert Andre Schapp discovered a couple months ago that the Unicode code points for the ancient script have been approved in 16 Verisign gTLDs, and apparently no others.
This means that domains such as should resolve.
Unfortunately, DI’s database does not support these characters, so I’m having to use images.
But at least one domain investor seems have snapped up a few dozen single-pictograph Egyptian hieroglyph names about a month ago, and his page has clickable links.
Whether you see the hieroglyph or the Punycode, prefixed “xn--“, seems to depend on your browser configuration.
Ancient Egyptian is apparently not the only dead script that Verisign supports.
According to IANA, you can also get .com domains in Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform, which went out of fashion in the second century CE, as well Phoenician, the world’s oldest known script.
Then there’s Imperial Aramaic, Meitei, Kharosthi, ‘Phags-pa, Sylheti Nagari and goodness knows how many other extinct writing systems.
It seems .com has been approved for 237 IDN scripts, in total. Let it not be said that Verisign does not offer domainers ample opportunity to spunk their cash on gibberish.
No Klingon, though.