Tucows’ domains business stagnates again in Q2

Tucows’ domain name business has experienced its third consecutive quarter of stagnating growth.

The company yesterday reported third-quarter total domains revenue of $61 million, compared to $62.3 million a year ago and $61.5 million in the second quarter.

Dave Woroch, CEO of Tucows Domains, described this 2% annual decline as “consistency” on a prerecorded address to analysts.

He pointed to Verisign’s recent comments about a decrease in .com registration volumes as evidence of an industry-wide post-pandemic slowdown, but was somewhat bullish on some new gTLDs.

“At the other end of the industry, we do see more robust growth in many of the new gTLDs that are of higher quality and that have little to no speculation or cyber crime opportunity,” he said.

The domains industry is “generally not showing a lot of growth”, he said, adding that “outsized growth would need to come from new areas”, which could include so-called “web3” efforts.

Woroch noted the recent funding of blockchain alt-root project Unstoppable Domains, but said Tucows is not a fan. Unstoppable has, like similar efforts dating back over 20 years, some “fatal flaws” and “a chicken and egg problem” of adoption, he said.

Domains under management at Tucows decreased to 24.8 million from 25 million sequentially and 25.6 million a year ago.

Tucows’ retail domains revenue was down to $8.5 million from $8.9 million a year ago, while the wholesale business, including value-added services, was down to $52.3 million from $53.4 million.

Including non-domains businesses, Tucows’ Q2 revenue was up 11% to $83.1 million and the net loss was $3.1 million compared with net income of $1.8 million a year ago.

Comment Tagged: blockchain, earnings, financials, tucows, unstoppable, web3

Malaysia relaxes travel restrictions ahead of ICANN 75

Malaysia has made it easier for foreign travelers to enter the country, which should take some of the headaches out of going to ICANN 75 next month.

According to local reports, the Malaysian government web site, and official UK travel advice, those entering Malaysia are no longer required to fill out a “travelers card” on the government’s contact-tracing app, MySejahtera.

It’s not clear whether MySejahtera is still mandatory for entry. The UK says you “may” be required to install it,

On-arrival tests have been scrapped, regardless of vaccination status, the Malaysian government said:

From 1st August 2022, all travellers are allowed to enter Malaysia regardless of their COVID-19 vaccination status and do not require a pre-departure or on-arrival COVID-19 test. There are no quarantine orders related to COVID-19 enforced by the Malaysian Government upon arrival.

If you test positive for Covid-19 while in Malaysia, you’re still required by law to quarantine for four days (if you subsequently test negative) to seven days (regardless of the test result) at your own expense.

While the government rules may take some of the red tape out of entering the country, ICANN’s still has rules about entering the meeting venue.

To obtain entry to the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center, you’ll need to have proof of vaccination under the current version of ICANN’s health guidelines, which were last updated July 20.

Thanks to Richard Wein for the tip.

Comment Tagged: covid-19, ICANN, icann 75, pandemic

GMO to sell Unstoppable’s crypto domains

Japan’s largest domain seller, GMO, is to sell Unstoppable Domains’s blockchain-based addresses under a new brand.

The company, which owns the registrar Onamae, is launching a site called “CryptoName by GMO” at cryptoname.jp, where Unstoppable’s full portfolio of crytocurrency-themed extensions are on offer.

Unstoppable said it’s first traditional domain name registrar to offer the service.

The CryptoName web site contains an extensive FAQ explaining that the names are primarily designed to address crypto wallets rather than web sites, where they won’t resolve for the vast majority of internet users and won’t be indexed by search engines.

1 Comment Tagged: cryptoname, gmo, onamae, unstoppable

More rules, but cozier ICANN 75 expected

There will be more rules to follow at ICANN 75 next month, but attendees might be able to expect a more intimate event, with less stringent seating restrictions.

The gathering, ICANN’s 2022 Annual General Meeting, will be held in Kuala Lumpur from September 17 to 22, the second pandemic-era meeting to have a face-to-face component, but in-person attendees need to register by September 14.

The new rules are largely a result of local laws, according to ICANN.

The first thing to note is that if you don’t have a smart-phone, you’re out of luck. Malaysia requires people entering the country to install a government Covid-control track-and-trace app called MySejahtera.

The law also says you have to wear masking indoors and self-isolate for four to seven days if you test positive. ICANN’s mandatory legal waiver makes the attendee responsible for associated costs.

But at the venue itself, ICANN is relaxing its session rules, saying it may halve the social-distancing requirement in half to a meter, which will allow more people into each room and could reduce the need for waiting lists and overflow rooms.

Many of the sessions at ICANN 74 in June were over-booked.

2 Comments Tagged: covid-19, ICANN, icann 74, icann 75, pandemic

India offers dollar regs to celebrate independence

Indian ccTLD registry NIXI has announced a limited-time sub-$1 promo on new .in registrations — INR 75 in local currency — to celebrate the country’s imminent 75th anniversary of independence.

The organization says it has reduced its registry fee to INR 25, and registrars that signed up had to agree to an INR 75 retail price, which works out to about $0.95 for the first year.

The promo runs from August 5 to 22, overlapping with Independence Day, which in India in August 15.

The promo also covers India’s multitude of local-script IDN ccTLDs.

There’s no list of participating registrars on NIXI’s web site, and the availability check appears to be broken, but most of the larger international registrars I checked are not offering sub-$1 prices.

.in back-end GoDaddy is currently selling for a discount, but it’s about $4. Namecheap is selling for $0.95.

In an apparent deviation from earlier controversial policy, NIXI is stating: “There is no limitation on the number of domains which can be booked by a registrant.”

Comment Tagged: .in, cctlds, nixi

auDA updates on 2LD .au sales

Registrations of second-level domains in .au led to strong growth in the second quarter, according to auDA.

The number of 2LDs registered between the namespace opening up March 24 and the end of June was more than 170,000 the registry said in its latest quarterly report.

There were 218,886 newly registered names in the second quarter, which ended with 3,603,924 total names under management, auDA said.

From launch and for the next few months, all 2LDs are reserved for owners of the matching 3LDs in for example .com.au, so it seems adoption is still quite slow.

In .uk, which liberalized its own zone several years ago, there were 1,370,488 registered 2LDs, compared to 9,777,315 3LDs, at the end of July, registry stats show.

Comment Tagged: .au, 2lds, auda

At $15 million, nfts.com becomes second-biggest domain sale ever

The domain nfts.com has sold for $15 million according to Escrow.com, which facilitated the sale.

The sale means the domain is the second most-expensive ever sold that we know about, beating the 2010 $13 million sex.com deal and trailing 2019’s sale of voice.com.

NFTs are of course “non-fungible tokens”, which something something crypto something something blockchain something something monkeys something something.

The deal was brokered by Domainer.com and GoDaddy, according to an Escrow.com press release.

The buyer has not been named, though he or she apparently has an association with NFT marketplace DigitalArtists.com, and no plans for developing the domain have been revealed.

Voice.com, which was acquired with $30 million of cryptocurrency profits, is currently being used to sell NFTs, though that was not the original plan.

1 Comment Tagged: domainer.com, escrow.com, godaddy, nfts.com

Now Nokia scraps a dot-brand

Finnish tech company Nokia has become the latest company to get rid of a dot-brand gTLD.

It’s asked ICANN to terminate the contract for the IDN .诺基亚 ( .xn--jlq61u9w7b), which is the Chinese transliteration of “Nokia”.

Like .nokia itself, the TLD is not currently in use. Nokia has not asked ICANN to terminate .nokia (or, at least, ICANN has not published such a notice).

Other companies that chose to terminate their Chinese IDNs include Richemont and Volkswagen. In Richemont’s case it was followed by all its other gTLDs.

1 Comment Tagged: dot-brands, ICANN, idns, new gTLDs, nokia, termination

InternetNZ appoints new CEO

Vivien Maidaborn has been selected as the new CEO of InternetNZ, New Zealand’s ccTLD registry.

She’s replacing Jordan Carter, who quit earlier this year for a top policy job at Australian registry auDA, and interim chief Andrew Cushen, who reportedly had put himself forward for the role on a permanent basis.

Maidaborn was most recently in a leadership role for Unicef in Vietnam. She’s expected to take over from Cushen in October.

InternetNZ is not only in the middle of a back-end transition to an EPP-based back-end based on technology from its Canadian counterpart CIRA, but also in a process of “becoming a Te Tiriti o Waitangi centric organisation”, a reference to the country’s foundational Treaty of Waitangi.

The press release announcing the appointment has a sprinkling of Māori terms that will most likely baffle foreigners, but the gist seems to be that the organization is trying to make itself more responsive to input from Māori citizens, whose ancestors landed on the islands hundreds of years before European settlers and got rather badly treated under British rule.

Comment Tagged: .nz, internetnz

Looks like XYZ bought another gTLD

XYZ.com appears to have added the 34th string to its swelling stable of gTLDs.

ICANN records suggest that it’s taken over the contract for .lat, a TLD aimed at Latin America.

While no contract reassignment documentation has been published, the transfer of .lat from ECOM-LAC, the Uruguay-based registry, to XYZ is on ICANN’s list of contract movements.

.lat’s addressable market is the over 600 million people in the Latin American region, not to mention the global diaspora. Names sell for as little as $25 per year.

But it only has about 5,500 domains under management right now, seven years after launch.

In theory, it would compete with .latino, but that appears to be a dodgy defensive delegation, never launched, by satellite TV company Dish.

3 Comments Tagged: .lat, acquisition, ecom-lac, new gltds, reassignment, xyz.com