NTIA issues draft RFP and outlines two-phase selection process to pick winner by April.
The U.S. government will open a Request for Proposal next year to select a registry operator for the .us top level domain.
The government currently contracts with GoDaddy Registry, which inherited the agreement when it acquired Neustar’s domain name business in 2020. Neustar had been awarded a ten-year contract in 2019, although much of that term consisted of option years. More recently, in June, GoDaddy Registry signed an agreement to extend its .us operations through August 2027.
Despite that extension, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration today issued a draft RFP that opens the door for other companies to compete for the contract. Potential bidders have until January 8, 2026, to submit questions about the proposal.
NTIA plans to use a two-phase selection process. Phase 1 submissions will be due in February. After reviewing those materials, NTIA will notify bidders whether they are invited to proceed to phase 2, not invited to proceed, or allowed to proceed but considered unlikely to win.
Phase 2 submissions will be due in March, with the government planning to announce the winning bidder in April.
The contract represents a significant opportunity for registry operators. The .us zone currently contains about 2.5 million domain names. While the government does not pay the registry operator directly, the operator collects wholesale fees from registrars for each domain registration.
Applicants must disclose their proposed wholesale pricing and any plans to offer rebates to registrars. Pricing will be considered in the evaluation, but it will not be the sole factor in determining the winner.
The base term of the new contract will be three years, with up to four additional one-year options, allowing the agreement to run for up to seven years. It will start with a transition period, assuming a new operator wins the award.
Bidders must demonstrate that they have operated a top level domain for at least five years and that they have managed a TLD with at least 2 million domains under management. The applying entity must also be a U.S. company. The requirements suggest that foreign operators cannot form a new domestic company solely to qualify, as applicants must meet the historical operational criteria.
In addition, the registry operator will be prohibited from acting as a registrar for .us domains. GoDaddy currently offers .us registrations through its registrar business, which is legally distinct from its registry operation. How NTIA addresses this restriction could be a key issue if GoDaddy seeks to retain the contract.
Still no whois/rdap privacy. No excuse. No credible reason, and obviously non-credible reason ever given or suggested.
I was there in 2002. The .us TLD was deliberately released for public use “under a rock” and designed to fail.
Misguided true believers, useful idiots, or just plain liars tell you it’s just that the registry failed to promote it, which is nonsense.
Many in the industry also had extreme incentive to not support it vs. .com.
Any honest truth seeker who knows anything about what’s really going on in this country and the world knows the real reason the American public has always barely even known .us exists, and cares even less – by design.
Nothing but the usual suspects – money, power and control. Within that context – above all – freedom of speech, the First Amendment, 1A. That is, the *bipartisan* war on free speech, and the danger and threat to the status quo and the “empire” that allowing Americans to know and care about .us has always posed. The refusal to allow whois/rdap privacy is integral to that.
That’s right – the war on free speech and the First Amendment is bipartisan, not just from Democrats and the (fake) “Left.” They simply implement their own respective flavors of it.
Somewhat recent case in point – the case of “LIbs of TikTok” on Twitter/X. The .us domain was how the person behind it was outed and “doxxed.” It’s a two edged sword. And that is exactly what refusing to allow whois/rdap privacy was designed for, to provide that “chilling effect” on free speech in spades, while the reality is that .us should otherwise have been one of the greatest possible means of exercising free speech to bring about change.
Worth checking out an extremely obscure .us site at Represent.us though. I’m sure they have their flaws like us all, but seemed overall quite good when I used to visit.
Tragic and sad how .us was deliberately released under a rock and kept under a rock all these years with no change in sight. Like so many other evils of our day, whether Democrat or Republican. And refusing to allow whois privacy is as un-American and anti-American as it gets.
One day God is going to end it all, this world and it’s continual evil, it will not be allowed to just go on indefinitely.
The RFP specifically states that the registry must enforce a no privacy rule.
Words cannot even begin to describe how evil that is, but no surprise given *both* of the last two administrations and Congresses, and prior. As I’ve said, as un-American and anti-American as it gets. “Lesser evil” this time has turned out to be just another and even a particularly huge den of genuine sociopaths, psychopaths and monsters. Everyone was conned and played again as usual, most especially the faithful “true believers” who are still. It’s one big uniparty, one big club, and most are not in it.
Many people have gotten out and are getting out of “the Matrix,” but the sad reality is still that the American public has been deceived and manipulated into fighting each other and believing the real conflict is between “left and right” instead of what it really is – “us and them.” And that’s just the human dimension which one can see. We can go into the other dimension another time, but you can learn about it in what is called the Bible. No doubt that still applies to many in the industry, and even you have more or less apparently been living in that camp yourself. though not as blatantly as others, on the so-but-falsely called “left” side.
I like following the blogs and sometimes commenting all these years, but I’m far more focused on the role of “truth seeker” and “truth teller.”
I could write so much more, as you probably suspect. It’s just so sad. As is all the evil being done in this country and the world.
Despite many people like me knowing the future and how it all turns out and ends up, it’s still so heart breaking and sad witnessing all the evil, murder and destruction.