Lockdown bump sees GoDaddy double customer gains in 2020

GoDaddy almost doubled its rate of customer acquisition in 2020, compared to 2019, as pandemic-related lockdown measures pushed more small businesses online.

The company last week reported that it added 1.4 million customers last year, a 7% year-on-year growth but almost double the number it added the previous year.

It ended the year with 20.6 million customers, up from 19.3 million 12 months prior.

Recognizing that coronavirus restrictions in various parts of the world were increasing demand for domains, hosting and related services, the market-leading registrar upped its marketing spend to make sure it captured as many customers as possible.

It spent $438.5 million on marketing last year, up from $345.6 million in 2019.

Its full-year revenue from domains grew from $1.35 billion to $1,51 billion. Including its other segments, company revenue was up to $3.31 billion from $2.98 billion, an 11% increase.

Domains revenue for the fourth quarter was $402.2 million, up 14.2% on Q4 2019. Total revenue for the quarter was $873.9 million, up 12.0%.

Comment Tagged: bump, coronavirus, earnings, financials, godaddy, lockdown, pandemic

Brit .eu owners get another three-month stay of execution

EURid, the .eu registry, has given UK-based registrants another three months to reclaim their suspended .eu domains.

The transition period governing Brexit ended with 2020, and with it UK citizens’ right to own a .eu domain. The registry suspended 80,000 names as a result.

These domains were due to be deleted at the end of March and released for re-registration by eligible registrants next year.

But EURid has now extended that deadline to the end of June.

Anecdotally, the New Year purge caused a flood of customer support inquiries at registrars, as registrants who somehow missed EURid’s repeated warnings tried to figure out why their domains no longer resolved.

Registrants can keep a hold of their domains if they move them to a registrant with an EU address, or if they declare themselves an EU citizen living in the UK.

Comment Tagged: .eu, brexit, eurid

Verisign upgrades its cash-printing machine but warns post-pandemic “could go either way”

Verisign has named the date for its long-anticipated .com prices increases, as it reported another healthy quarter and year of growth.

The company announced that the annual wholesale fee for a .com domain is going up from $7.85 to $8.39, effective September 1. That’s in line with the 7% annual cap reinstated by the Trump administration and rubber-stamped by ICANN.

It’s the first .com price increase since 2012, when reg fee was frozen by the Obama administration’s Department of Commerce under its longstanding contract with the company.

The $0.54 price increase would mean an extra $82.5 million for Verisign’s top line, assuming the .com base remains static at today’s level of 152,883,064 domains. The reality is very probably that registrations will continue to grow, however.

Verisign is allowed to increase prices by 7% three more times under its current ICANN contract. It was allowed to take the Trump bump last year but deferred due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Registrants are able to lock-in their current renewal rates for up to 10 years before the price rise kicks in, assuming registrar fees don’t increase in the meantime.

.com is of course a fabulously successful business, and it received a pandemic-related boost last year, due to a increase in small businesses moving online due to lockdown rules, which was reflected in Verisign’s fourth-quarter and full-year results.

Verisign reported fourth-quarter net income up from $148 million to $157 million, on revenue that was up 3.1% to $320 million.

For the full year, net income was up from $612 million million to $815 million, on revenue that was up 2.7% at $1.23 billion.

Operating margin is always an metric where Verisign shines — I often get phone calls from analysts baffled as to why ICANN allows such blatant profit-taking — but it was down a tad to 65.2%, from 65.5% in 2019.

That’s probably not enough to dislodge its crown as the company with the highest operating margin of the S&P 500.

Speaking to analysts and investors last week, Verisign said it’s projecting 2021 operating margin down again, to be between 64% and 65%, because of increased investment in its infrastructure and the $4 million annual bung it’s agreed to pay ICANN.

While Verisign is only going to see one quarter of higher prices this year, it seems the majority of its increased revenue will trickle down to the bottom line.

The company expects its domain growth to be between 2.5% and 4.5% in 2021. Execs noted continuing pandemic-related uncertainty. CFO George Kilguss said:

when the pandemic subsides and things start opening it up, I think it could probably go either way either it could accelerate or it could slow a little bit. We’re just not sure how the market would react just as we were somewhat uncertain when this whole pandemic started

In other words, while coronavirus proved an unexpected boon, post-pandemic economic recovery may not necessarily be a good thing for the industry.

1 Comment Tagged: .com, earnings, financial, prices, verisign

Nominet declares member coup “invalid”

Nominet has stared fighting back against a plot by some of its members to kick out the CEO, chair and three other directors, declaring part of the plan “invalid”.

The PublicBenefit.uk campaign, which currently has the backing of over 17% of members’ voting rights, wants to replace these five directors with two of its own choosing: former BBC Trust chair Sir Michael Lyons and former RIPE NCC managing director Axel Pawlik.

Nominet confirmed yesterday that it will shortly call the demanded Extraordinary General Meeting, as required by its bylaws, and that the resolution calling for the board cull will be voted on.

But it said it cannot allow the second resolution, which would bring in the two new directors, to go ahead. Chair Mark Wood wrote that such a move would be illegal under Nominet’s own rules on director selection:

we have unequivocal advice that the second resolution, seeking to designate Sir Michael Lyons and Axel Pawlik as Directors is invalid and cannot be put before members. We have reviewed this carefully with our legal advisors, and independent counsel, who have all advised us that this is the case. This is because Members may appoint directors only through the elections process specified by our constitution, articles and bylaws, and the maximum number of member-elected Board seats are already filled.

Wood goes on to say that to remove so many key directors and leave their seats empty would be a further destabilizing factor on the company, which runs the .uk registry.

The risk of leaving Nominet rudderless has been a key theme of the company’s response to PublicBenefit.uk since its petition first emerged last month. Nominet wants the EGM request withdrawn.

The campaign, which is fronted by Simon Blackler of Krystal Hosting, tweeted in response:

We sought legal advice before we started and believe both resolutions are valid.

If you’re truly worried about stability resign and appoint the Directors the members want?

The campaign wants a clean slate on the board in order to have Nominet reduce its wholesale prices, rein in its efforts at product diversification, and start returning more of its profits to public benefit causes.

Wood last week committed to pay £4 million to such causes in the first half of this year, double its 2020 contribution and a return to 2016 levels.

Comment Tagged: .uk, egm, nominet, publicbenefit.uk

Public comments open on new Whois policies

It’s your last chance to comment on ICANN’s proposed revisions to Whois policy.

ICANN has opened up public comments on what it opaquely calls EPDP Phase 2 Policy Recommendations for Board Consideration.

Why it just can’t use the term “Whois access”, or announce its public comment periods in layman’s terms is beyond me. Doesn’t it want public comments? Still, translating this nonsense into English keeps me in work, so I guess I won’t complain too hard.

The main feature of the proposed policy is a multi-tiered, somewhat centralized system for requesting access to Whois data about private registrants that has been redacted since the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation came into effect in May 2018.

It’s called SSAD, for System for Standardized Access and Disclosure, which was pieced together by a working group of community volunteers over a year.

Domain companies are generally okay with the compromise it represents, but intellectual property interests and others who would actually use the system think it’s a useless waste of money.

It’s expected to cost $9 million to build and $9 million a year to run.

There’s so much uncertainty about the system that in parallel with the public comments ICANN is also consulting with the GNSO Council, which approved the proposals in September, to figure out whether it’s even workable, and with the European Commission to figure out if it’s even legal.

After the public comment period closes on March 30, the comments will be compiled by ICANN staff and burned on a big fire sent to the ICANN board for final approval.

2 Comments Tagged: epdp, gdpr, ICANN, privacy, ssad, whois

ICANN CEO gets 5% pay rise

ICANN’s board of directors has awarded CEO Göran Marby a 5% pay rise after a review found that he’s being paid less than half of his peers at other companies.

Based on Marby’s last-reported base salary of $673,461, the increase amounts to a bump of $33,673.

He’s also still eligible for a 30% annual bonus, which he usually gets a piece of.

The board justified the move by stating that a third-party review found Marby’s salary was below 50% of CEOs at other non-profits, general industry and high-tech companies. Using for-profit companies in the mix sometimes proves controversial.

The board said that he’s only received one pay raise before in the five years he’s been on the job — a 3% increase in 2019.

His new pay comes into effect in July.

ICANN says its “compensation philosophy is to pay base salaries within a range of the 50th to 75th percentile of the market for a particular position.”

It says that even with the new raise, Marby’s pay still comes in outside of the lower end of that window.

Marby’s contract was recently extended by two years to 2024, over the objections of two directors.

4 Comments Tagged: ICANN

Security firm sues Facebook to overturn UDRP loss of “good faith” typo domains

Security company Proofpoint has sued Facebook in order to keep hold of several typo domains that are deliberately intended to look like its Facebook and Instagram brands.

Proofpoint wants an Arizona court to declare that facbook-login.com, facbook-login.net, instagrarn.ai, instagrarn.net and instagrarn.org are not cases of cybersquatting because they were not registered in bad faith.

Proofpoint — a $7 billion company that certainly does not phish — uses the domains in anti-phishing employee training services, as it describes in its complaint:

Proofpoint uses intentionally domain names that look like typo-squatted versions of recognizable domain names, such as , and the other Domain Names at issue in these proceedings.

By using domain names similar to those of well-known companies, Proofpoint is able to execute a more effective training program because the workforce is more likely to learn to distinguish typo-squatted domains, which are commonly abused by bad actors to trick workers, from legitimate domain names.

Employees who click the bogus links are taken to harmless web pages describing how they were duped.

The court case comes shortly after Facebook prevailed in a UDRP case filed with WIPO.

In that case, the panelist decided that Proofpoint had no legitimate interest in the domains because they led to web sites that linked to Proofpoint’s web site, where commercial services are offered.

He therefore found that the names had been registered in bad faith, because visitors could assume that Facebook or Instagram in some way endorsed these services.

Proofpoint wants the court to reverse that decision and allow it to keep the names. Here’s the complaint (pdf).

It strikes me as at the very least bad form for Facebook to go after these domains, given that Proofpoint is tackling the Facebook phishing problem at source — user idiocy — rather than the reactive, interminable UDRP whack-a-mole Facebook seems to be engaging in.

3 Comments Tagged: cybersquatting, facebook, instagram, phishing, proofpoint, trademarks, udrp, wipo

Registrar giant created as Web.com merged with Endurance

Clearlake Capital Group, which has taken Endurance International private and recently took a big stake in Web.com, has merged the two registrar stables to create a new company it’s calling Newfold Digital.

By my reckoning, Newfold has probably become the second-largest registrar group by domains under management, with around 16.5 million gTLD names across just its best-known half-dozen brands, leapfrogging Namecheap and Tucows in the registrar league table.

That number’s probably a big understatement. It doesn’t capture ccTLDs and does not take into account that the company now has hundreds of active ICANN accredited registrars, largely due to Web.com’s drop-catching business.

Its best-known registrar brands are Register.com, Network Solutions, Domain.com, BuyDomains, BigRock, PublicDomainRegistry and CrazyDomains. Its BlueHost and HostGator brands are both pretty big deals in web hosting.

Clearlake says Newfold has 6.7 million customers worldwide.

The privatization of Endurance, which sees it delisted from the Nasdaq stock exchange, was announced in November and cost Clearlake $3 billion. The value of its Web.com stake, which it acquired last month, was not disclosed.

Siris Capital, which bought Web.com in 2018, continues to have a stake.

Newfold will be led by two Web.com execs — CEO Sharon Rowlands and CFO Christina Clohecy.

The deal follows Web.com’s unsuccessful attempt to buy Webcentral last year.

There’s no word on (presumably inevitable) layoffs as the two companies come together.

2 Comments Tagged: acquisition, bigrock, buydomains, clearlake, crazydomains, domain.com, endurance, network solutions, newfold, PublicDomainRegistry, register.com, web.com

Nominet chair eats humble pie to stave off mass board cull

Nominet’s board of directors has outlined a series of changes it plans to make, including freezing its own pay and .uk domain prices, in an effort to avoid a member move to fire half the board, including the CEO and chair.

They’re also going to bring back the late, lamented member discussion forums.

Chair Mark Wood today wrote that Nominet plans to increase the amount of revenue it gives to “public benefit” purposes, which he said will hit £4 million by June, double last year’s amount.

After 2021, the company will donate 10% if its annual revenue to these causes, he said. That would be roughly £4.5 million a year, based on 2020 revenues, and roughly in line with 2015 levels, when the current senior management took over.

He went on to say that .uk registry fees will be frozen for two years. The last price increase went into effect last year after staying in place for four years.

The board won’t bump up its own salaries for two years either, Wood wrote.

The letter is in response to the member-driven move to fire Wood, CEO Russell Haworth, and three other members of the board, over what they see as mismanagement of the company. Currently, 13.6% of member votes — 196 registrars and individuals — have backed an Extraordinary General Meeting to hold this vote. This may be sufficient to successfully oust the targeted directors.

Among the demands of PublicBenefit.uk, initiated by Krystal Hosting, are an increased focus on public benefit causes, lower prices, improved member communications and a reversal of Nominet’s policy of diversification into non-registry services.

Wood thinks the EGM effort is foolhardy, however. He wrote:

Whatever the intention, the EGM proposal destabilises the organisation and, as a result, is not in the interest of members, registrars or registrants. If the EGM initiative achieves its aims, it will leave the company leaderless and facing an exodus of the highly-skilled staff we depend on to maintain the highly complex registry service we provide. It will erode trust and confidence in .UK, which is part of critical national infrastructure, and put Nominet’s independence at risk.

He’s proposing increased transparency of the cyber-security division, a new Registry Advisory Council, and new communication tools for members, including the launch of a “a well-governed next-generation member forum”.

The old forum was shut down last year, and announced (some members think with a certain amount of glee) by Haworth during Nominet’s Annual General Meeting. The forum was overly hostile to Nominet staff, he said at the time.

Wood now says “the decision to close the Nominet Forum, and the way in which this was done, damaged our relationship with some members in a way we had not intended.”

It’s quite a list of concessions from a board that clearly knows it’s on the ropes, but whether it’s enough to change the minds of large enough number of members remains to be seen.

Comment Tagged: egm, nominet, publicbenefit.uk

ShortDot adds fourth gTLD to its stable, plans March launch

Another unused new gTLD has changed hands, ending up at ShortDot, the registry best-known for high-volume .icu.

ShortDot confirmed to DI today that it has acquired .cfd from its former owner, DotCFD.

The original plan for .cfd, one of the Boston Ivy collection of investment-related new gTLD applications, was for it to represent CFDs, or “contracts for difference”, a risky type of financial instrument that has proved sufficiently controversial that they’re not even legal in the US.

Since 2012, when the string was first applied for, CFDs have come in for serious criticism from market regulators and others due to the risk of significant losses they present to retail investors.

No .cfd domains have ever been sold, and it doesn’t appear to have ever properly launched, even though it’s been in the DNS root for five years.

But ShortDot COO Kevin Kopas tells me the plan is to repurpose the domain for an entirely different market.

“When we were contemplating the purchase and subsequent marketing angle we found that the traditional meaning of a CFD in the finance world doesn’t have the most positive connotation to it,” he said.

“We’re branding .cfd for the Clothing & Fashion Design industry and will be marketing it to entrepreneurs, bloggers, vloggers and others that are on the cutting edge of the fashion industry,” he said.

If that sounds like a stretch, you’re probably right — as far as I can tell, the fashion industry has never used that acronym and creating demand there will be a tall order. We’re in “professional web” territory here.

But Kopas said that ShortDot is already working with some influencers in the space “to create some pioneer cases that will go live at launch”. It’s also planning to attend fashion industry events after pandemic travel restrictions are over.

The company is planning to launch the domain with a first-come, first-served sunrise period beginning March 10 and ending April 12. General availability is slated for April 13 with a seven day early access period.

It’s the fourth unwanted gTLD ShortDot has acquired, repurposed and relaunched.

Its biggest success to date is .icu, a low-cost domain that proved popular almost exclusively in China and currently has 2.5 million domains in its zone file (down from a peak of 6.3 million less than a year ago).

ShortDot has shifted, then lost, so many .icu domains over the last two years that you’ve really got to factor out its influence if you want to get any sensible picture of what the new gTLD industry’s growth looks like.

It also runs .bond (2,500 names in its zone today) and .cyou (with 65,000).

3 Comments Tagged: .cfd, .icu, acquistion, boston ivy, dotcfd, ICANN, new gTLDs, shortdot