Registrars off the hook for silly ICANN transfer policy

Domain name registrars have been assured that ICANN Compliance will not pursue them for failing to implement the new Transfer Policy on privacy-protected names.
As we reported late November, the new policy requires registrars to send out “change of registrant” confirmation emails whenever certain fields in the Whois are changed, regardless of whether the registrant has actually changed.
The GNSO Council pointed out to ICANN a number of unforeseen flaws in the policy, saying that vulnerable registrants privacy could be at risk in certain edge cases.
They also pointed out that the confirmation emails could be triggered, with not action by the registrant, when privacy services automatically cycle proxy email addresses in the Whois.
This appears to have already happened with at least one registrar that wasn’t paying attention.
But ICANN chair Steve Crocker told the GNSO Council chair last week that ICANN staff have been instructed to ignore violations of the new policy, which came into effect December 1, in cases involving privacy-protected domains (pdf).
It’s a temporary measure until the ICANN board decides whether or not to defer the issue to the GNSO working group currently looking at policies specifically for privacy and proxy services.

Comment Tagged: ICANN, inter-registrar transfer policy, privacy, transfer policy, whois

Mitsubishi pulls plug on dot-brand gTLD

Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi has told ICANN it no longer wishes to operate one of its dot-brand gTLDs.
The company has filed a termination notice covering its .mtpc domain, which stands for Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation.
The gTLD was delegated in February 2015, but Mitsubishi has never put it to use.
Registry reports show only two names ever appeared in the .mtpc space.
It’s the 19th gTLD from the 2012 round to voluntarily self-terminate — or to allow ICANN to terminate it — after signing a Registry Agreement.
All terminated gTLDs so far have been dot-brands.
Mitsubishi also owns .mitsubishi. That dot-brand appeared earlier this year but also has not yet been put to use.

Comment Tagged: .mtpc, dot-brand, ICANN, mitsubishi, new gTLDs, termination

Pheenix adds 300 more registrars to drop-catch arsenal

The domain drop-catching arms race is heating up, with budget player Pheenix this week acquiring 300 more registrar accreditations from ICANN.
According to DI records, the company now has almost 500 registrar accreditations in its family.
More accreditations means more registry connections with which to attempt to acquire expired domains as they return to the available pool.
It also means that Pheenix’s dropnet (a word I just made up that sounds a bit like “botnet” in a pathetic attempt to coin a term for once in my career) is now a bit bigger than that of Web.com, the registrar pool behind Namejet and SnapNames.
It’s still a long way behind TurnCommerce, owner of DropCatch, which two weeks ago added a whopping 500 new accreditations, bringing its total to over 1,250.
An extra 300 accreditations would have cost Pheenix over $1 million in up-front ICANN fees and will incur ongoing fixed annual fees in excess of $1.2 million.

2 Comments Tagged: accreditation, drop catching, dropcatch, expired, ICANN, namejet, pheenix, snapnames

Neustar agrees to go private in $2.9 billion deal

Struggling infrastructure services firm and domain registry Neustar is set to go private in a $2.9 billion deal.
The company, best known for .biz, .co and .us, has agreed to be bought out by a group led by Golden Gate Capital.
The $33.50-per-share offer, announced on Wednesday and which Neustar’s board has approved, is a 45% premium over the closing price the day before Golden Gate first disclosed it had a stake.
That’s still hell and gone from the roughly $45 the shares were trading for a few years ago, before the company first raised concerns that its lucrative number portability deal with the US government was on the ropes.
Since it became apparent that the numbering contract, which accounts for about half of Neustar’s revenue, was at risk, the company has attempted to focus its efforts on marketing services, security and domains.
That effort included the $87 million acquisition of registry rival Bombora (owner of ARI and AusRegistry) last year.
Earlier this year, the company announced its intention to split into two, basically spinning off all of its businesses not exposed to the US government contract.
It’s not entirely clear whether that plan will be followed through, but Neustar can no doubt be expected to go through some significant restructuring under new ownership. Golden Gate et al are not altruists, after all.
Neustar has 30 days to consider better offers from other white knights, under the terms of the deal.
If ultimately given the final rubber stamp, the deal may still not close until the third quarter of 2017, Neustar said.

Comment Tagged: acquisition, neustar

After Zika threat passes, ICANN confirms return to Puerto Rico

ICANN will hold its first public meeting of 2018 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which was originally supposed to the venue for this October’s meeting.
ICANN moved ICANN 57 from San Juan to Hyderabad, India in May, at the height of the scare about the Zika virus.
Zika is spread by mosquitoes and sex and can cause horrible birth defects. An epidemic, beginning in 2015, saw thousands affected in the Americas and South-East Asia.
Puerto Rico was one of the affected regions. At the time of the ICANN postponement, numerous government travel warnings were in effect.
The World Health Organization announced last month that the epidemic is over.
It was always understood that Puerto Rico had been merely postponed rather than permanently canceled, and ICANN’s board of directors this week resolved to hold the March 2018 meeting — ICANN 61 — there.

Comment Tagged: ICANN, icann 57, puerto rico, zika

Go Daddy’s Merdinger named DNA chair

Go Daddy VP of domains Rich Merdinger has been appointed interim chair of the Domain Name Association, replacing Neustar’s Adrian Kinderis.
In a blog post, Merdinger said the DNA will become more “vocal” under its new leadership and outlined three priorities for 2017 — awareness, adoption and access.
He said the DNA will share ways businesses can pursue a strategy of “blending” TLD types in their online activities, promote domains as search engine optimization tools, and make it easier for DNA members to participate.
There will be a new series of DNA Virtual Town Hall meetings to facilliate communication. Merdinger wrote:

Expect to see a more vocal DNA – whether it is at the next virtual town hall or learning about new research on domain name strategies and their business impact. As Interim Chair, I will be working with our leadership team on ways to spotlight how domain names are being used strategically and tactically to support business objectives in 2017 and beyond.

He replaces Kinderis, formerly CEO of AusRegistry/ARI/Bombora, who is now, post-acquisition, VP of corporate development at Neustar.
Kinderis, DNA’s founding chair in April 2013, will remain on the DNA’s board of directors, representing Neustar.
It’s interesting that Merdinger’s appointment to chair is being linked with the DNA becoming more “vocal”.
While Merdinger certainly isn’t a shrinking violet, Kinderis, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me saying, is one of the bluntest, mouthiest guys in the industry.
That said, GoDaddy has name recognition and has proven to be a bit of a headline magnet over the last decade or so.
It surely has a higher profile among would-be registrants — a big part of the DNA’s audience — than Neustar, which isn’t primarily a domain name company or even necessarily primarily an internet company.
The DNA will continue to operate without an in-house staff, having dumped its second executive director earlier this year in favor of outsourcing to a trade group management company, to cut costs.

Comment Tagged: dna, domain name association, godaddy, neustar

Donuts acquires stagnant .irish TLD

Donuts has acquired the new gTLD .irish, which is struggling to gain volume after about 18 months on the market.
The gTLD was applied for and operated by Dot-Irish LLC, a US company founded by Irish and Northern Irish entrepreneurs.
Since going to general availability in June last year, it managed to grow its zone file to a peak of about 2,300 names in the first year.
That’s since dropped off to about 2,000 names.
Even self-consciously Irish registrar Blacknight has only managed to shift fewer than 500 names.
These numbers are disappointing any way you look at them, with the original gTLD application talking about an addressable market of 6 million Irish citizens and 80 million more in the Irish diaspora.
Registrar support does not seem to have been the issue. Registrars with reach, including Tucows, Name.com, Host Europe Group and Go Daddy all sell the names.
Pricing may be a factor. While Blacknight promotes .irish prominently for about $10 a year, elsewhere prices can range from $40 to $50.
The terms of the acquisition, which Donuts said closed last month, have not been disclosed.
Donuts said it will migrate .irish to its own infrastructure March 1, 2017. All policies and protection mechanisms that apply to the rest of the 198-strong Donuts stables will be applied to .irish, the company said.

2 Comments Tagged: .irish, acquisition, donuts, dot-irish, new gTLDs

Free .shop domains until Christmas

The new .shop gTLD is likely to see growth over the coming week or so, as registrars begin to offer them for free.
Two retail registrars in the Key-Systems stable — Moniker and domaindiscount24 — said today they will offer a free .shop to each of their customers until December 23.
The offer is limited to one domain per account, so we’re unlikely to see the same level of growth, speculation and abuse we’ve seen in other TLDs that have offered free registrations.
Other popular registrars are currently selling first-year .shop names for $8 to $10, a discount on the usual retail price of between $25 and $30.
Interestingly and perhaps surprisingly, Key-Systems’ native Germany already has the most .shop registrations to date, with over a quarter of the 100,000 or so names registered so far to registrants in that country.
You have to go to number four in its geographic breakdown league to even get to the first Anglophone nation (the US).

2 Comments Tagged: .shop, domaindiscount24, gmo, key-systems, moniker

Trump trends in .com, while stoners hit .net

The US elections last month seem to be responsible for almost all of Verisign’s “top trending keywords” for November.
Donald Trump topped the company’s monthly list of fastest-growing strings in both .com and .net registries.
The four words of his idiotic campaign slogan “Make America great again” also appear individually in the .com top ten.
The votes to legalize medical and recreational marijuana use in several US states also seems to have inspired speculation in “pot”, “weed” and “cannabis” names, though more noticeably in .net.
In fact, the only string in the .com list not related to the US polls appears to be “near” (at least, I cannot find a connection).
The Verisign report includes words that achieve a certain level of growth month-to-month, factoring out strings that are commonly registered every month.
Here are the November lists.
[table id=47 /]

3 Comments Tagged: donald trump, keywords, trending, verisign

Three millionth .it name registered

Italian ccTLD .it has topped three million domains for the first time, according to registry Registro.it.
The milestone name was abbigliamentoludica.it, seemingly a clothes shop. It appears to have been registered November 25.
The registry announced the news in English last week.
It appears that growth is slowing somewhat over the long term. The ccTLD hit one million in 2005 and two million in 2010, but it’s taken six years to get to the next big landmark.
.it seems to have started the year with 2,869,010 domains under management, according to its stats page.
It currently has 3,002,135 domains under management, according to the web site.

Comment Tagged: .it, cctld, registro.it