Domain Incite

I’m accidentally cross posting this because I left this thread to find the link then searched on HN and posted it to the wrong one. Worth reading Kevin Murphy’s piece here: https://domainincite.com/30395-future-of-io-domains-uncertain-as-uk-ha…

I follow domains a bit out of curiosity. I'm pretty bullish on the new TLDs (as a concept), but I would say .com is the only truly safe TLD. It's the only one where an attempt to remove price controls should see a lot of resistance and any other shenanigans will cause outrage. After that, .net and .org are still pretty safe, but we already saw the first attempt at usurping .org recently. Some of the ccTLDs (country code) look ok if you're a citizen in a developed country. For example, CIRA is a fairly decent registry for .ca (although they seem to have ghosted me after I asked something more than a trivial question of them). Next is everything else IMO. ICANN and the registries have egregiously mismanaged and squandered every opportunity with the new gTLDs. However, even with that incompetence, the new TLDs seem to be catching on more and more. I think that's an indicator of how successful the industry could be with better leadership. One of ICANN's primary responsibilities should be to protect registrants from predatory registries. The .storage anecdote in this thread is a good example of ICANN failure IMO. If they want to push adoption of the new gTLDs, ICANN needs to make predictability and risk minimization for registrants their #1 focus. The second most important thing for ICANN should be to publicize and criticize discrimination against new TLDs. For example, the whole .xyz being blacklisted everywhere that was on the front page a few weeks ago is the…

From the ICANN site, 154 gTLD agreements have been terminated. I'm not sure how many due to non-payment, but https://domainincite.com/30105-icann-to-terminate-five-new-gtlds indicates that at least some have been due to non-payment. https://www.icann.org/en/registry-agreements?sort-column=top-level-dom…

https://domainincite.com/24614-centralnic-to-pay-3-4-million-for-iwant… I appreciated the indie feel as well, but I can't blame someone for selling out to the tune of 7 figures when the opportunity arises.

But late to complain about a monopoly now that .com has turned from growth to decline and other TLDs take over the growth. The coffee place where I had a coffee earlier today has a .coffee comain, the other one nearby has a .cafe domain. https://domainincite.com/29513-domain-universe-grows-on-new-gtlds-desp…

5 ccTLDs have been deleted https://domainincite.com/30406-five-times-icann-deleted-a-cctld-and-wh… https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41781827

10-3: https://domainincite.com/30395-future-of-io-domains-uncertain-as-uk-ha… I taglined it with ".io shit what now?"

Url changed from https://domainincite.com/29381-icann-picks-the-domain-it-will-never-ev… which points to this.

> Is there any precedence for this? i'm not sure - but there's definitely risk, and a lot of potential for it to happen here: - https://domainincite.com/23957-un-ruling-may-put-io-domains-at-risk - https://www.nominet.uk/the-shifting-world-of-country-codes/ - https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/27/io_domains_uk_un/?page=2

I don't know the full details but AFAIK there's still a dispute between Verisign (.com, .net) and Afilias (.info), they both accuse each other of cheating at the 2016 auction. You can find most of the drama here: https://domainincite.com/tag/web

Still in limbo but looks like Verisign will be able to launch it at some point: http://domainincite.com/27180-verisign-boss-talks-web-launch-timing-an…

Actually that’s not true. In 2017 .wed (with real customers) gTLD ceased operation and was taken over by ICANN under the EBERO program. http://domainincite.com/22372-as-wed-goes-ebero-did-the-first-new-gtld…

I was going to ask about that domain because when I looked into it ICANN doesn't allow unicode/emoji gTLDs? Which seems to discriminate against non latin languages? http://domainincite.com/18035-why-you-cant-register-emojis-in-gtlds

Seems like a nice victory in a single battle. But in the context of a much larger war in the TLD space it doesn’t seem like domain registrants are winning: https://domainnamewire.com/2020/11/19/donuts-is-acquiring-afilias/ EDIT to add: http://domainincite.com/26107-westerdal-offloads-two-more-gtlds-to-don…

In addition with management issue, the biggest issue/risk with .io is related to the fact the domain might have to come back Mauritius in a short term/few years as UK ownership of the related islands are unlawful: http://domainincite.com/24236-future-of-io-domains-has-become-party-po…

They used to be a reseller, but in early 2018 they completely moved off of Enom and registered domains directly: http://domainincite.com/22467-namecheap-to-bring-millions-of-domains-i…

I'm not generally sympathetic to the "domain investor" types, but this quote from domain investor Rick Schwartz I feel is spot on and has been my thought since "day one" of the new TLDs > "As we go into the seventh year of the new gTLD experiment, they are meaningless. They haven’t been adopted by almost anybody. Circulation is poor. So many registrations are questionable or penny-promotional. The majority are parked and not in use nor will they ever be. And 99.9% of the people on this planet could not name a single one of them! Not a one!" Full article: http://domainincite.com/25103-di-leaders-roundtable-4-big-predictions-…

The top dogs like HugeDomains own hundreds of registrars and using their connections to chase domains. These are not resellers, the registrars are there only to catch domains. Your chance of winning the drop game is near zero if they want it. If you want to scoop up free names, there's lots of bulk tools on registrars to let you buy in bulk. http://domainincite.com/21309-dropcatch-spends-millions-to-buy-five-hu…

Or even more terrifyingly, this: http://domainincite.com/23957-un-ruling-may-put-io-domains-at-risk Fortuitously, .dev happens to be hitting General Availability tomorrow. And both meetup.dev and openmeet.dev are still available! Disclaimer: .dev is my baby.

That's the initial registration cost. If there are multiple applicants for it, it will go to auction. For a popular gTLD, the auction can go into several million dollars. .shop, for instance, closed at $41.5M [1] 1. http://domainincite.com/19886-shop-gtld-sells-for-record-41-5-million

It's a ridiculous salary. However, I don't think your figure of 3.4bn USD is correct. http://domainincite.com/20121-icann-ups-new-gtld-revenue-forecast https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/adopted-opplan-budget-fy16… So, I think it's the registrars (GoDaddy, etc.) that get this money, not ICANN. Blake Irvin (CEO, GoDaddy) made 1.9 million in 2015 (with a turnover beyond 1 billion).

As wila pointed out in this thread, Freenom has been connected to cybersquatting [1]. Operating a widely used DNS server might allow them to register commonly mistyped domains (?). Not sure whether this is indeed sensible. [1] http://domainincite.com/18797-freenom-suspended-for-cybersquatting-riv…

and then there's this: http://domainincite.com/18797-freenom-suspended-for-cybersquatting-riv… edit: They are also the company behind the .tk domain. http://www.dot.tk/en/index.html?lang=en

You were probably witnessing normal DNS propagation after the authoritative name servers had been changed. Keep in mind that the nameserver data you see in "whois" may not be up to date. When a site is seized, law enforcement goes direct to the registry (GLTD operator, such as Verisign), not the registrar. See http://domainincite.com/2766-icann-had-no-role-in-seizing-torrent-doma… for an example

Not really. The citation you mentioned above itself says, under "Private Auctions" -- > The winner will pay the amount of the second-highest bid, split either equally or proportionally between the losing applicants And if you look at the news articles from the time that .blog was auctioned -- like http://domainincite.com/17991-blog-won-in-eight-figure-auction-by-prim… -- Minds + Machines, one of the losing bidders, revealed that they had received 3.4 million dollars after pulling out of the bidding for both `.blog` and `.store` Also, apart from all the above which is public knowledge and there for you to find on your own, I work for Automattic, and when I checked with those who were involved with the .blog purchase, he confirmed that the winning bid was dispersed to the losing bidders. All in all, not a bad consolation prize.

I stand somewhat corrected. It looks like Vox Populi has created a class they're calling "Sunrise Premium Names" and will price discriminate even after the sunrise period ends. http://domainincite.com/18246-halt-perverted-sucks-shakedown-now-deman… "Sunrise Premium names will always cost $2,500, even after sunrise, when registered by the trademark owner." This is basically without precedent, so it will be interesting to see how this shakes out.

The headline was changed... Google won the right to the .app TLD for $25m. More information here: http://domainincite.com/18066-google-buys-app-for-over-25-million

Even that list is incomplete, as it misses the country-code domains. For example, ucl.ac.uk was in DNS sometime in mid 1985 (http://domainincite.com/2657-was-this-the-first-ever-uk-domain) But DNS registration wasn't the beginning of domain names - before DNS there was hosts.txt and some "new-style" domain names found their way in there before DNS. This document ftp://ftp.maths.tcd.ie/src/mail/mmdf-Maths/doc/auth.ps from April 1985 by Steve Kille at UCL includes a server log (page 5) that lists hosts in cambridge.ac.uk, rsre.ac.uk, ukc.ac.uk, and rutherford.ac.uk in use all before the domain names were registered in DNS. Disclaimer: I've had the same cs.ucl.ac.uk email address since I was a student in Sept 1985. Now I'm feeling old.

Perhaps you're thinking of EasyDNS? http://domainincite.com/15538-cops-cant-block-domain-transfers-without… From the arbitration decision: "Although there are compelling reasons why the request from a recognized law enforcement agency such as the City of London Police should be honored, the Transfer Policy is unambiguous in requiring a court order before a Registrar of Record may deny a request to transfer a domain name… The term “court order” is unambiguous and cannot be interpreted to be the equivalent of suspicion of wrong doing by a policy agency. To permit a registrar of record to withhold the transfer of a domain based on the suspicion of a law enforcement agency, without the intervention of a judicial body, opens the possibility for abuse by agencies far less reputable than the City of London Police."

No. See: http://domainincite.com/10254-why-domain-names-need-punctuation