Facebook to enter the retail registrar business?
Worryingly perhaps for the retail registrar market, Facebook has revealed it’s due to launch a set of business web-hosting services.
The company said in a blog post last week that it plans to reveal Facebook Hosting Services “over the coming months”.
While very little is known about these services, Facebook appears to be interested in leveraging its popular WhatsApp messaging platform. The company blogged:
Facebook Hosting Services – Businesses have varying technology needs and want choice in the companies they work with to host and manage customer communications, particularly with remote work increasing. Which is why over the coming months, we plan to expand our partnerships with business solution providers we’ve worked with over the last two years. We will also provide a new option for businesses to manage their WhatsApp messages via hosting services that Facebook plans to offer. Providing this option will make it easier for small and medium size businesses to get started, sell products, keep their inventory up to date, and quickly respond to messages they receive – wherever their employees are.
There’s no mention of domains there, but domains almost always go hand in hand with hosting.
The fact that a company with Facebook’s reach is venturing into hosting will surely worry registrars that already make a huge chunk of their revenue from such services.
Facebook URLs are already considered a valid alternative to domain names for many small and micro-businesses, so there’s a question mark next to Facebook’s intention with regards domains.
Facebook already owns at least two ICANN-accredited registrars, RegistrarSEC and RegistrarSafe, but they do not sell domains to third parties.
The two registrars are currently basically an insurance policy against Facebook’s hugely valuable domains being suspended or transferred by third-party registrars in response to court orders.
RegistrarSEC appears to be the preferred registrar for Facebook’s defensive domains. Its domains under management number has been growing by hundreds per month for the last few years. It has over 8,500 names currently.
RegistrarSafe is the sponsoring registrar for about 175 of Facebook’s key domains, such as facebook.com and instagram.com.
Facebook’s UDRP wins seem to usually wind up at law firm Hogan Lovells’ registrar.
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