Company will grandfather existing registrations in many new TLDs.
New top level domain name registry Uniregistry is backtracking on its plans to significantly increase prices on existing registrations this September.
Last month, the company announced price increases of up to 30x current prices. This caused quite an uproar and put Uniregistry founder Frank Schilling on the defensive. GoDaddy stopped enabling registrations and transfers-in of Uniregistry names as a result.
The company will still increase pricing in September, but now the company says it will grandfather existing registrations in nine of its domain names that are having the biggest price hikes: .audio, .blackfriday, .diet, .flowers, .guitars, .hiphop, property, .hosting and .jeugos.
In a message to registrars today, the company explained that its initial feedback from registrars prior to the price hike was that grandfathering existing registrations at lower prices was technically difficult. I’ve heard the same thing.
Nonetheless, this is exactly what Donuts did when it increased prices on some of its domains.
Uniregistry will now do the same thing for many of its domain names. This document (pdf) shows the upcoming pricing, including legacy pricing in the far right column.
Uniregistry is also reducing the amount of price increase for .Christmas and .Sexy domain names. In September these will increase to $30 and $25 respectively, instead of $50 and $0.
As part of the price increase in September, Uniregistry will move many of its premium domain names to the base price, which will be $100 in many of the TLDs. The higher base prices will allow the registry to essentially release all domain names at standard prices.
Domainer says
What about the other extensions? So I get screwed by frank and the uniregistry cronies as .click will double. We drank his coolaid .
Andrew Allemann says
Click goes from $4.67 to $7.00. FWIW, I imagine you’ll still be able to get cheap renewals on those domains, at least at Uniregistry (the registrar).
domainet says
Andrew,
My point is he is now picking certain domains to grandfather and other to not, so he will piss off a few less people,
Richard says
As much as I appreciate Frank, I’m afraid the damage is already done.
Dan says
It’s all those hundreds of thousands of names North sound domains is hoarding.
They aren’t selling, he has to pay icann fees on them, and they don’t want to release them into the stream like the gtld program as intended for.
So at a higher price point he doesn’t care, but he ain’t giving them to you domain squatters for reg fee, not on his dime.
Anon says
Can someone please write something about this?
It seems that this is a much bigger issue.
Everytime you talk to someone at Uniregistry about the names they held back, they feign ignorance and say “you have to talk to the private registrant” – when that private registrant is North Sound Names. Then they list really basic domains at like $20k/pop.
Okay, technically they’re different *legal* entities, but it seems really ridiculous that they won’t own up to the fact that they’re the same entity.
It seems like Frank is both trying to create name spaces and play Domainer on a much bigger scale at the same time(how many .click / .link domains have actually sold for $20k), which might be great for him, but really makes for a terrible user experience.
It’s a shame because Uniregistry.com is a great product, but I can’t help thinking he’s using the data he has there (on who registers what & when) and using that to inform the names he decides are “premiums” and holds back w/ North Sound.
Nick says
Does any of it really matter when they can change their mind next year and raise prices on all existing registrations?
Ron says
Or next week for that matter. So is this final answer, locked in? Or do more suckers keep registering, and they change their mind next week again?
James D. says
Assuming the best names are already registered, there will then be a premium charged for lesser names registered in the future? Counter-intuitive.
Ron says
The best names are registered, and sitting on hold by the registry’s holding company North Sound Names.
The idea was that companies would line up to pay end user prices 4-5 figures for such names, and then charge a regular renewal.
Well the end users never came, now those names sit in a warehouse collecting binary dust, albeit they are paying icann 18 cents each for them, and nobody gets to use them.
The whole GTLD program is a fleece, and a farce at the same time.
Puny Registry says
I can only hope that Frank’s actions won’t adversely affect my investment in PunyRegistry.com name…
Joseph Peterson says
Good choice! I criticized the lack of grandfathering. So I’ll commend Uniregistry’s change of course.
Would it have been nice if old prices were maintained for pre-existing registrants of the other TLDs? Yes. But, as far as this goes, this goes in the right direction. We mortals ought to be grateful for small mercies.
A Mitchell says
There are two necessary ingredients for market survival today. It is necessary but not sufficient for companies to be both:
1. Data driven
2. Customer centric
Google gives us a perfect case study of a company that is data driven but not customer centric. The company’s users serve as the company’s products. The company’s longstanding compromising of its customers’ interests has built up a wellspring of resentment that Google will never overcome. It can never present a consistent, clean message of how it might have become truly customer centric, at least as long as it maintains its current business model. Google is fatally uncool.
Uniregistry, despite driving itself into the ditch over these price increases, is not yet fatally uncool.
It can still avoid jettisoning the goodwill that it has built up over the years. It can still avoid alienating the people who have supported it the most. It can still offer up a clean, tweet-sized explanation of how it almost tipped over, but righted itself before it lost a considerable number of its passengers and the best members of its crew.
Grandfathering the renewal prices of all of Uniregistry’s TLDs would go a long way toward that company’s self-preservation. It would also adhere more closely to the data-driven and customer-centric requirements for survival in today’s business world.
I really like Frank Schilling and I want to see his company succeed. But he is not going to do it alone. Uniregistry can only succeed within a larger ecosystem. Poisoning that ecosystem and then retreating halfway is not going to pull that car out of the ditch. He needs to go all the way.
JezusChrist.com says
The price of http://FsChilling.com just got increased.
Wayne says
You would have to say power to the people with this one.