This is how we do it down in Puerto Rico.
Domain name registry services provider Afilias has won a contract to operate the backend registry for Puerto Rico’s .PR top level domain name. The transition to Afilias was completed yesterday. Previously, technical operations were handled in-house.
.PR is unrestricted and has been pitched as a good extension for Public Relations firms. One of the more popular domains is n.pr, which is used as a shortener by National Public Radio.
Neither Afilias nor .PR manager Gauss Research Laboratories were immediately available to provide domain counts to DNW. [Update: Gauss Research disclosed that there are 7,784 .pr domains registered.] DomainTools tracks just over 5,000 domain names on .PR but this is likely misleading because many of the domains on .PR are third level registrations under second level domains like .com.pr.
Currently, registrars offer second level .PR registrations for over $1,000 per year while third level registrations are available for about $150.
While this probably isn’t a huge revenue contract for Afilias, the timing will allow the company to showcase the expanding roster of TLDs is supports during the ICANN meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico in March.
Afilias recently won a major contract to manage 3 million domain names registered on Australia’s .AU domain.
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