New top level domain name company extends contract with Rightside.
Donuts has extended its contract with Rightside for the latter to provide backend registry services for Donuts’ top level domain names, the two companies announced today.
Rightside has been the only backend registry provider in Donuts’ short lifespan, but the contract extension was not a certainty. Earlier this year, Donuts revealed that it was participating in a Google-led effort for open source registry software called Nomulus. Paul Stahura, CEO of Donuts at the time, said that the company had not committed to moving to Nomulus.
Switching to an open source registry would save money in theory. But Nomulus is not a turnkey solution like what Rightside offers.
Additionally, Donuts would have to pay ICANN about $1 million in testing fees to switch all of its domain names to a different provider.
Extending the Donuts contract was an important win for Rightside. After selling eNom, Rightside is doubling down on new top level domain names. It would have looked really bad had it lost such an important customer or if its new top level domain business’s revenue dropped.
A Donuts spokesperson told Domain Name Wire:
The extension with Rightside provides us with infrastructure and other components that help us reliably meet technical obligations to partners and end-users. We’re pleased to have arrived at this agreement.
The real outrage in this story should be that ICANN gets to charge (exorbitant) “testing fees” for a registry to test an already established domain name registry platform!? That’s ludicrous!
Reign ICANN in and its unregulated monopoly and bring it under the purview of the Federal Trade Commission – if the NTIA wishes to absolve itself of oversight, it *must* be regulated in some way and the FTC seems the best avenue to accomplish that. 🙂
Cheers,
Doug