ICANN cleaning house, cans four more registrars

ICANN has withdrawn the accreditations of four more long-defunct registrars, bringing this month’s terminations so far to 11.

They’re all Chinese, though they do not appear to be under common ownership. They are: Qinghai Yunnet Electronics Technology Co, Shandong Huaimi Network Technology Co, Xiamen Booksir Qiyoutong Technology Co and Xiamen Yuwang Technology Co․

What’s notable is how long it’s taken for ICANN to yank their accreditations. It’s been three or four years since Compliance opened tickets on each of them for non-payment of fees.

None of the four have any gTLD domains under management, and some don’t even seem to own their own original domains any more. One had its former web site turned into a blog in 2022. Another has its domain parked and listed for sale.

Seven registrars get terminated

ICANN has terminated the accreditations of seven registrars for not paying their fees.

Haveaname, InstantNames, MisterNIC, NetEstate, Neudomain, OpenName, and TopSystem — all under common ownership in the US — have all been given their marching orders, effective April 17.

While Compliance said it will transfer the registrars’ domains to another registrar, in practice it seems that none of them actually have any remaining domains under management.

As I previously blogged, the seven all appear to have sacrificed their DUM when they lost their .com accreditations in late 2024. That’s about the same time as ICANN stopped receiving its fees.

“Lowest Price Guaranteed!” $48 .com registrar canned

ICANN has terminated its second registrar of the week, ending the accreditation of Hong Kong-based 0101 Internet for non-payment of fees and other infractions.

The registrar, not to be confused with the unrelated 101 Domain, will lose its ability to sell gTLD domains January 29, according to a public ICANN termination notice.

The company’s roughly 1,200 gTLD domains will be transferred to another registrar, a procedure complicated by the fact that ICANN also alleges that 0101 Internet has not been escrowing its customers’ registration data as required.

The Compliance notice spells out a timeline of alleged non-responsiveness to ICANN’s emails, phone calls, mail and faxes dating back to March 2003, almost three years ago.

0101 Internet’s web page proudly declares “Lowest Price Guaranteed!”, with .com, .net and .org priced at a measly $47.88 each, which might explain why the company’s DUM has been tumbling for over a decade.

.goo terminated as search engine closes down

The .goo gTLD is among a pair of dot-brand gTLDs to recently self-terminate.

goo was a 1990s-style search portal focused on the Japanese market and owned by local incumbent telco NTT. It eventually lost relevance and finally closed down for good at short notice last November.

Despite the similar branding, goo was unrelated to Google and in fact predated Google’s foundation by about a year, according to some accounts. It eventually turned to Google to power its search functionality.

NTT has asked ICANN to terminate its .goo registry contract and ICANN has given it the nod.

There was one active .goo domain, www.goo, which redirected to goo.ne.jp, its primary domain.

Joining .goo in self-termination is .wolterskluwer, one of those gTLDs that really makes me scratch my head for having never noticed its existence despite my daily exposure to vast amounts of gTLD data.

It’s owned by Wolters Kluwer, a large Dutch company that provides software for professionals such as doctors and lawyers. Unlike goo, the company appears to be in robust health but it never used its gTLD.

Goodyear tires of its dot-brand

For the record, I’m not proud of that headline. It doesn’t even work in British English. But if I hadn’t done it, some of you would have complained, and I want you to be happy.

Rubber company Goodyear has become the latest new gTLD registry operator to tell ICANN to terminate a dot-brand.

In this case, it’s not the company’s primary, .goodyear, but rather .dunlop, the brand of one of its tire-making subsidiaries.

The company did not give ICANN a reason for the self-termination; the Dunlop brand appears to be alive and well.

Neither .goodyear nor .dunlop have any registered domains. Dunlop and Goodyear both use .eu and .com domains for their primary web sites.

Two deadbeat registrars get their ICANN marching orders

ICANN has terminated the registrar accreditation agreements of two Chinese companies, which appear to be under common ownership, because they didn’t pay their bills.

EJEE Group Beijing and VIP Internet Industry are both losing their contracts, effective later this month. Both have common contact details, apparently run by the same person who had another registrar terminated in 2017.

EJEE does its business at category-killer domain domain.cn, though the registration storefront appears to be broken. VIP Internet’s web site appears to be down entirely.

While both companies have sold thousands of domains in their time, both have had just one or two gTLD domains under management for the last 12 months, according to my records. No registrants will be affected, in other words.

ICANN seems to have been chasing the registrars for their overdue fees since March 2023, over two years ago, according to the termination notices.

Dot-brand actually being used to get deleted

A Chinese clothing company has asked ICANN to delete its dot-brand gTLD, despite the fact that it is being used for web sites and email.

Redstone Haute Couture wants rid of .redstone, which has been in active use for almost a decade.

My database shows that it has about a dozen names, most registered in 2016 and most of which resolve, not redirect, to web sites.

Several have MX records, suggesting they are or were being used for email too.

No reason was given for Redstone’s request. The brand itself doesn’t seem have been retired, though the company is perhaps better known for its product lines such as Giada and Curiel.

The company was using ZDNS as its back-end registry services provider.

Pru trims its dot-brand portfolio

Financial services company Prudential Financial has dumped one of its three dot-brand gTLDs, which it was not using.

The company has asked ICANN to terminate its contract to run .pramerica, which, despite the name, provides investment services to the Indian market. The subsidiary uses a .in domain for its web site.

While .pramerica has never had a registered domain in the eight years it’s been active, Prudential has two other gTLDs — .pru and .prudential — which are in active use.

Neither is used as the primary domains for their respective brands — both use exact-match .com names — but both have live corporate sites under domains such as pr.pru and stock.pru.

Prudential’s gTLDs all run on GoDaddy’s back-end registry.

Four deadbeat registrars get terminated

ICANN has terminated the contracts of four registrars that haven’t paid their accreditation fees in years.

US-based Zoo Hosting, UK-based Nerd Origins, and China-based Mixun and Mixun Network Technology have all been canned, following public breach notices in January.

Judging by the termination notices, the registrars all stopped paying their quarterly fees between 2022 and early 2024. None of them had implemented recent ICANN policies such as RDAP adoption, the notices added.

It’s not a huge problem, as none of the four companies had ever sold a single gTLD domain name, so there are no customers to be affected.

Lancaster bags up its dot-brand

A French leather goods company is trashing its lightly-used dot-brand gTLD.

Lancaster has told ICANN that it wants to terminate its Registry Agreement for .lancaster.

The company added half a dozen names to the gTLD in 2016 — things like bag.lancaster and fashion.lancaster — but they always just redirected to its primary web site at lancaster.com.

Lancaster used AFNIC as its back-end registry services provider.

The string “Lancaster” has many uses, from other brands to geographic locations, so it’s not impossible .lancaster might return in another guise in a future new gTLD application round.