Bob Parsons publishes autobiography

GoDaddy founder and former CEO Bob Parsons has published his rags-to-riches autobiography, Fire in the Hole!

Subtitled The Untold Story of My Traumatic Life and Explosive Success, the book is co-written with jobbing celebrity biographer Laura Morton, who’s previously worked with GoDaddy-sponsored racing driver Danica Patrick.

It promises to detail “the exploits of his youth, his hellish days at the mercy of Catholic school nuns, his harrowing tour of combat duty in Vietnam as a US Marine, his pioneering contributions to the software and internet industries, and his latest ventures in power sports, golf, real estate, and marketing.”

“This is a story of how I started with absolutely nothing and made over $3 billion,” Parsons said in a press release.

Published yesterday by Forefront Books, it’s already ranked #1 in Golf Biographies on Amazon.

I’m going to wait for the paperback, so I can’t speak to its contents, but cover quotes reveal that Jada Pinkett-Smith, Rob Lowe and Nick Jonas all enjoyed it.

3 Comments Tagged: godaddy

GoDaddy getting a free pass from porn jail?

ICANN has shirked its compliance duties and is handing GoDaddy a “Get Out of Jail Free” card with proposed changes to their .xxx registry agreement, according to critics.

A recently closed public comment period saw a mixed response from the community on whether GoDaddy should be allowed to throw out inconvenient and costly terms of its 10-year-old registry contract and operate .xxx more of less like any other open gTLD.

While the deal’s chief critic, consultant and former ICANN director Michael Palage, has made a detailed case explaining why he thinks the amendments should not go ahead, other commenters agree with GoDaddy that some of its stricter registration policies are no longer needed.

Tucows said that the current .xxx rules, which require registrants to verify their identities, are “cumbersome or non-transparent”, not only adding unnecessary friction to the registration path but also amounting to the “surveillance of sex workers”.

Palage managed to persuade the At-Large Advisory Committee to submit its own comments, in which ALAC claims that GoDaddy has already “walked away” from three important contractual commitments on registrant verification and abuse reporting “unilaterally and without consequence from ICANN Contractual Compliance”.

According to Palage, when GoDaddy acquired ICM Registry from MMX a few years ago it unilaterally decided to stop verifying the identities of its registrants and did away with the unique community membership IDs that enabled it to deactivate a registrant’s entire portfolio if it was found to be in breach of the rules by, for example, publishing child sexual abuse material.

ICM also stopped donating $10 for every registration to its oversight body, IFFOR, which in turn spent the money it did receive on director salaries rather than making cash grants to child protection causes, Palage says. I’ve previously gone into some depth on this.

“I am concerned that instead of ICANN compliance holding ICM Registry accountable to these representations, they’re essentially giving them a get out of jail card free and potentially removing the ability for third parties to hold ICM Registry accountable to those representations,” Palage said during a March presentation to the ALAC.

His draft comments for the ALAC were subsequently submitted under his own name; ALAC submitted a shorter, somewhat watered down version drafted by chair Jonathan Zuck.

But ALAC and Palage are in agreement that GoDaddy should have gone through the usual Registry Services Evaluation Process if it wanted to change the terms of its contract, and that the proposed amendments set a terrible precedent. ALAC wrote:

ALAC believes that commitments made in order to operate a TLD by a Registry Operator should be enforceable, subsequently implemented by the Registry Operator, and enforced by ICANN Contractual Compliance… The ALAC is concerned that the removal of commitments, through a contract renewal, could set a precarious precedent for non-compliance without repercussion for existing Registry Operators

The Business Constituency echoed ALAC’s concerns in its own comments, as did registry operator CORE Association.

Comments in favor of the .xxx amendments came from two veteran, dissenting voices from the At-Large community, Evan Leibovitch and Carlton Samuels. They said removing the extra requirements from the .xxx contract would reduce confusion and were worthless anyway:

Given the benefit of hindsight, the “Sponsored gTLD” program and designation have not on the whole provided any significant benefit to the Internet-using public. As such, we welcome the removal of this designation — and any associated extra contract requirements — from all applicable Registry Agreements going forward.

Tucows’ support for the amendments are based largely on what a pain in the neck it can be — for registrant and registrar — to register a .xxx domain. Its comments explain:

Currently, to register a .xxx domain, one must become a member of the Sponsored Community, which involves a separate application process to verify eligibility. This extra step is a barrier for those looking to quickly secure a domain. Additionally, the domain cannot resolve—meaning it cannot be used to host a website—without a valid Membership ID, which is only issued after this verification process… This activation involves additional interactions between the registry, the registrant, and the registrar. Additional steps in the registration process can be a significant deterrent as they introduce complexity and time delays.

I’m not really buying the “surveillance of sex workers” claim. Porn producers in many jurisdictions, including the US, already routinely verify the identities of their performers, and keep copies of their identity documents on file, as a legal requirement to ensure their employees are not underage.

ICANN is due to publish its summary of the public comment period by May 20.

How ICANN handles the renewal of and amendments to the .xxx contract will be interesting to watch. Will the Governmental Advisory Committee get a chance to weigh in before the deal is signed? Will the board pass a resolution, or will we see a repeat of the .org renewal debacle?

Comment Tagged: godaddy, ICANN, icm registry, xxx

Correction: Sinha’s seat is safe

Last Friday, I speculated that, based on my back-of-the-envelope calculations, ICANN chair Tripti Sinha could find herself ineligible to continue on the ICANN board of directors this November, due to geographic diversity quotas.

My calculations were incorrect, it turns out. While she still needs to be reappointed by the Nominating Committee, Sinha is not limited by the geographic diversity limits. I’ve deleted the article and apologize for the error.

Comment Tagged: aso, board, elections, ICANN, nomcom

Chinese domains plummet again in 2023

There was almost no movement in the number of .cn domain names registered in 2023, according to the registry.

CNNIC had 20,125,764 .cn names under management at the end of last year, compared to 20,101,491 at the end of 2022, according to its recently published end-of-year report.

That’s an increase of under 25,000 domains, about a tenth as many net regs as fellow leading ccTLD .de, the domain for far less-populous Germany.

CNNIC also tracks the overall number of domains registered in-country, regardless of TLD, and that dropped dramatically again, following the trend of years.

There were 31,595,563 domains registered in China at the end of December, compared to 34,400,483 a year earlier, according to the report.

Comment Tagged: .cn, cnnic

GoDaddy price increases lead to revenue growth

GoDaddy last night reported domains revenue ahead of forecasts after it raised its prices and sold more higher-priced domains on the aftermarket.

The company’s Core Platform segment, which includes domains and hosting, reported first-quarter revenue up 4% compared to a year ago at $725 million, with domains revenue driving growth, up 7% percent to $532 million.

Domains under management was 84.6 million at the end of March 31.

“Our growth was driven by strong demand for domains in the primary and secondary market, increased pricing in the primary market and a higher average transaction value in the secondary market,” CFO Mark McCaffrey said in prepared remarks.

Aftermarket revenue was up 12% to an unspecified amount.

Including the company’s other revenue streams, GoDaddy reported net income of $401.5 million on revenue up 7% at $1.1 billion.

Verisign, the .com registry, last week reported stagnating .com growth that it blamed in part on US registrars raising their retail prices, leading to lower first-year sales and renewals.

Comment Tagged: .com, earnings, financials, godaddy, verisign

D3 announces seventh blockchain gTLD client

D3 Global has announced yet another likely new gTLD applicant from the blockchain space.

The specialist consultancy said it has partnered with MAKE and the Casper Foundation, a software developer and its non-profit backer respectively, to apply for .cspr when ICANN opens its long-awaited next round of new gTLD applications in a couple years.

It’s the seventh such deal D3, which says it can help blockchain companies link their alternative namespaces to the DNS, has announced since its launch late last year.

It is also working with partners to apply for .ape, .core, .vic, .near, .gate, and .shib.

Comment Tagged: .cspr, casper foundation, d3, ICANN, make, new gTLDs

Taylor Swift applies for her .post domain

A back-up in case the whole music thing doesn’t work out?

Taylor Swift has become the first celebrity to attempt to defensively register her name in the .post gTLD, which is currently in the middle of a newly extended and incredibly belated sunrise period.

According to the registry’s web site, the domain taylorswift.post has been applied for by DNStination, a MarkMonitor subsidiary used to register names on behalf of clients.

The .post relaunch is pretty unusual in that all sunrise period applications are being published on the registry’s new web site, with a user-friendly form for challenging them.

About 60 domains have been approved since sunrise kicked off in mid-March and about the same amount are currently in their 30-day challenge period. For context, .post had barely 400 domains under management prior to the current relaunch, despite having been live in the DNS for 12 years.

The usual suspects such as Meta, Google and Amazon, as well as many national postal services, have all participated in the sunrise, which is open to all trademark holders regardless of their nexus to the logistics or postal industries.

But after the sunrise period is over and the new general availability regime begins, .post is only supposed to be for any entity “interested in participating in the postal, logistics or supply chain sectors”, so it’s difficult to see how a future cybersquatter might have been able to abuse Swift’s brand.

It’s probable that MarkMonitor is under instruction to “just register everything”. Swift is a multi-billion-dollar brand and the internet has no shortage of scumbags trying to rip off her millions of adoring fans.

That said, Swift’s domain application has another two weeks left on the challenge clock, so if you’re Team Kanye, or simply find her music nauseating…

Comment Tagged: .post, sunrise, taylor swift

.ad domains to go global soon

Andorra’s ccTLD is to become the latest potential domain hack for the Anglophone world, when the local registry massively liberalizes its registration policies later this year.

.ad domains are due to become available to any registrant globally starting in October, via an as-yet-unpublished list of approved registrars. General availability wholesale prices appear to be €15 ($16) a year.

Currently, the domains are only available to Andorrans manually going through the government trademark office, but it seems the registry, Andorra Telecom, has moved to a standardized EPP back-end with all the usual business logic that entails.

Before GA, starting May 22, there will be a gradual ramp-up period that seems to combine elements of typical sunrise and landrush periods. Foreign trademark owners will be able to apply during this period.

Interestingly, it seems that you may also be able to register a .ad that matches your domain in another TLD, without a matching trademark, during this period.

.ad is of course an abbreviation of “advertisement” in English, which may make it attractive to registrants outside Andorra.

The attractiveness is perhaps enhanced by the fact the the plural, .ads, is one of many gTLDs that Google owns but has so far refused to launch.

Andorra is a tiny nation, with a population about the same as Grimsby, nestled in the mountains between France and Spain. The national language is Catalan, as is the new registry web site.

3 Comments Tagged: .ad, andorra, landrush, sunrise

Single-letter .com case back in court

The domainer trying to get his hands on all the remaining single-character .com and .net domain names has re-filed his lawsuit against ICANN.

Bryan Tallman of VerandaGlobal.com (dba First Place Internet) has filed an amended complaint in a California court, after the judge threw out his initial complaint in March. He alleges deceptive trade practices and breach of contract, among other things.

His claim is that he has sole rights to all unregistered single-character .com and .net domains, such as 1.com and a.net, because he’s registered the matching domains in Verisign’s internationalized domain name transliterations, such as the Hebrew קום. or the Korean/Hangul .닷컴.

He paid Verisign, via registrar CSC Global, $25,285 for 1.닷넷 back in 2017 and reckons he was also buying the exclusive rights to 1.com and 1.net. The same arguments applies to the dozens of other ASCII.IDN domains he registered, according to the complaint.

The argument rests almost entirely on a letter (pdf) from Verisign to ICANN in 2013, in which the registry sets out some of its plans for its IDN gTLDs.

The letter is imprecisely worded, to the point where if you squint a bit, drop some acid, and hit your head against the wall a few times, you might be persuaded that Verisign is saying it would be willing to sell the rights to 1.com for 25 grand.

The complaint says this letter is “ICANN policy”, and the rest of its arguments are pretty much based on that incorrect premise.

ICANN has already filed a demurrer, asking the court to throw out the complaint again, largely on the grounds that the letter is not “policy” and ICANN doesn’t have a contract with any of the plaintiffs that it could be accused of breaching anyway.

The latest filings can be found here.

1 Comment Tagged: first place internet, ICANN, idns, scdns, verandaglobal, verisign

ICANN to slash costs as Verisign’s magic money tree dries up

ICANN is looking for $8 million of cost savings, $3 million more than it expected a quarter ago, amid gloomy predictions about the domain industry’s likely performance this year.

The Org last week told community members that it’s having to revise its expected revenue down by $3 million to $145 million after it became clear domain sales won’t be as good as previously thought. The new budget is due to be approved by the board this coming weekend.

“ICANN faces an inflation of its costs and also happens to face a lack of inflation of its funding,” CFO Xavier Calvez said on one of two conference calls explaining the changes.

ICANN’s bean counters are now predicting a 4% decline in transaction fees from legacy gTLDs — a line item mostly comprising .com — for ICANN’s fiscal 2025, which begins this July. Back in December, when the first draft of the budget was published, the prediction was for 0% growth.

The grim numbers match Verisign’s own growth story for the rest of the calendar year. Company bosses last week predicted .com/.net to grow at between 0.25% and negative 1.75%, a downwards revision on its guidance in February.

Talking to Verisign and other registries and registrars and looking at the monthly transaction data they file is the main way ICANN formulates its budget predictions.

“We gauged very strong expectations of a contraction in domain name registrations,” ICANN programs director Mukesh Chulani said.

Meanwhile, ICANN estimates transaction fees for new gTLDs will increase 7% in FY25, obviously from a much lower base then legacy, compared to the December estimate of 2% growth.

ICANN was already expecting its funding to miss its spending requirements by $5 million, but that figure is now $8 million. But rather than run ops at a loss, ICANN has instead put this number on a line labelled “Cost Savings Initiatives” in order to present a balanced bottom line.

Where these cost savings might come from doesn’t seem to have been figured out yet, and there’s some community worry that services might be affected by cuts.

There was some talk of finding efficiencies in the travel budget or with contractors, but those budgets are $13 million and $24 million respectively, so any cuts there could be swingeing.

By far the largest expenditure line item is staff, which costs $90 million. But there’s been no change to the expected number of ICANN full-timers in the budget, so layoffs don’t seem to be on the cards just yet.

Comment Tagged: budget, ICANN, verisign