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.Com leaderboard gets a shakeup

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

The Endurance-Web merger changes the look of the charts.

The words "top 10 domain registrars" in purple and yellow text

ICANN has published the latest official data from Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) about the .com namespace. This registrar-by-registrar report covers November 2020.

Last month, Endurance International Group went private and combined with Web.com in a new company called Newfold Digital. Starting with this month’s report I have combined the entities. I have also added in the SnapNames registrars. Newfold leaps Tucows in the total domains under management chart.

This combination creates one more space on the total domains under management leaderboard, which created another quandary: should TurnCommerce be included? I only include registrars that are open to the public, not closed registrars owned by a domain investor. TurnCommerce’s registrars are open to the public but a large percentage of its domains are owned & operated. I made the decision to start including the registrar and to combine the numbers from NameBright and its DropCatch.com LLCs. That puts it in the #7 slot.

Here’s how registrars did in terms of new .com registrations in November:

1. GoDaddy.com* (NYSE: GDDY) 832,844 (877,848 in October)
2. Namecheap Inc. 263,785 (286,290)
3. Newfold Digital+ 232,929 (n/a)
4. Tucows** (NASDAQ:TCX) 207,024 (231,248)
5. Alibaba (HiChina) 203,286 (163,555)
6. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) 144,030 (154,803)
7. United Internet^ 120,167 (79,506)
8. Wix (NASDAQ: WIX) 96,220 (94,842)
9. Dynadot 84,546 (n/a)
10. CentralNic^^ (AIM: CNIC) 80,478 (73,193)

 

Here’s the leaderboard of the top registrars in terms of total .com registrations under management as of the end of November 2020.

1. GoDaddy* 54,735,035 (54,610,243 in October)
2. Newfold Digital 14,595,094 (n/a)
3. Tucows** 12,988,434 (12,977,614)
4. Namecheap 6,856,440 (6,516,860)
5. Alibaba 6,133,679 (6,086,689)
6. United Internet^ 5,719,043 (5,655,462)
7. TurnCommerce++ 4,513,069 (n/a)
8. Google 4,052,113 (3,994,114)
9. GMO 2,149,198 (2,174,353)
10. CentralNic 2,207,996 (2,145,282)

Many domain companies have multiple accreditations and I’ve tried to capture the largest ones. See the notes below.

* Includes GoDaddy, Wild West Domains, Uniregistry and 123 Reg
** Includes Tucows, Enom, Ascio and EPAG
+ Includes PDR, Domain.com, FastDomain, Bigrock, Network Solutions, Register.com, SnapNames registrars, and Crazy Domains/Dreamscape. There are other Newfold registrars, but these are the biggest.
++ Includes NameBright and DropCatch registrars
^ Includes 1&1, PSI, Cronon, United-Domains, Arsys and world4you
^^ Includes Key-Systems, 1API, Internet.bs, TLD Registrar Solutions, RegistryGate, Moniker, Instra

ICANN terminates Net 4 India

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

ICANN finally terminates Indian domain name registrar that has been in insolvency.

Image of a contract with a pen laying on it, with words "ICANN terminates Net 4 India"

ICANN announced on Friday that it has finally terminated its Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) with Net 4 India Limited. Net 4 India has been in insolvency and customers have complained about many issues.

ICANN said that it received lots of complaints — 400 of them between June 5, 2019 and September 30, 2020 — about the registrar, many of them about domains not renewing and the inability to transfer them.

The non-profit domain overseer first contacted Net 4 India about customer complaints in April 2019. It issued a Notice of Suspension in June 2019. The suspension was delayed due to activity in Indian courts. ICANN started issuing breach notices to the registrar in late 2020. In January this year, ICANN issued its third breach notice to Net 4 India, noting that a court in India asked it to delay terminating the registrar so long as Net 4 India complied with the accreditation agreement.

Apparently, it has not done so.

ICANN will now commence the De-Accredited Registrar Transition Procedure.

GoDaddy’s Afternic had security hole

by — Domain Registrars 7 Comments

Issue with API has been resolved.

Photo of a Yubi FIDO U2F key in a black laptop. The Key is blue with a gold key emblem on a wood grain backgrond

GoDaddy allows customers to use a physical security key, like the pictured Yubi device, to protect their main accounts. A recent security breach will increase calls for similar two-factor authentication at Afternic.

GoDaddy’s Afternic domain aftermarket platform had a security issue with its API that has since been fixed, the company told impacted customers.

In an email to impacted customers, the company stated:

On Thursday, February 12, a security researcher contacted us about a potential issue with a Web API. We immediately opened an investigation and found a misconfigured server accessible though [sic] the API. Using this API, the security researcher crafted a specific request that returned information from other customer accounts.

Through our audits, we identified this specific API call was run against a small segment of our customers’ accounts. Unfortunately, your information may have been viewed using this call, which includes your first name, last name, email address, physical address, telephone number, and your Afternic username. At no point was your password or credit card information at risk.

As soon as we identified the issue, we removed the server from rotation, securing our API infrastructure.

Please monitor for any suspicious communications that may come from third parties through the contact details that were on your Afternic account (e.g. email/telephone number).

We are very sorry this incident happened. Protecting the privacy of our customers is our top priority and we let you down in this instance. Our team is committed to preventing these types of incidents in the future and we’ll always be forthcoming in our communications with you.

A GoDaddy spokesperson confirmed that all impacted customers have been contacted.

It’s fortunate that no passwords were accessed. With fast transfer turned on, someone could change the price of domains and purchase them at a low price to effectively steal them. It would be helpful if GoDaddy enabled two-factor authentication for Afternic to make this less likely to occur.

New GoDaddy domain listing wizard generates 350k aftermarket listings

by — Domain Registrars 8 Comments

Company introduced tool that enables its typical customer to list domains for sale.

Screenshot of GoDaddy domain listing wizard

GoDaddy’s new domain listing wizard has helped the company add 350,000 domains to the aftermarket.

GoDaddy recently made listing domains for sale easier for all of its customers, not just domain name investors. Customers who have unused domain names in their accounts can walk through a wizard to list their domains for sale through the company’s GoDaddy network.

On last week’s investor conference call, GoDaddy CEO Aman Bhutani said:

Our new list for sale tool has also seen an incredible first inning. This tool lets customers with unused domain names list them in our aftermarket and in just three months we’ve seen over 350,000 domains get listed.

I reached out to GoDaddy for more color on this number. A spokesperson told me that this does not include any domains listed directly on Afternic. While the number includes some investors listing their domains through GoDaddy.com, “We’ve seen great momentum from our non-domain investor customer base,” the spokesperson said.

Lots of people who don’t consider themselves domain name investors own unused domain they’d be willing to sell. By making it easy for them to list these domain names, GoDaddy is unlocking inventory and making it easier for other people to acquire these domains.

Earnings report: Quarterly domain revenue tops $400 million at GoDaddy

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

Domains segment hits milestone and GoDaddy announces two retirements.

GoDaddy logo showing the heart-shaped design

GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) released Q4 and full-year 2020 earnings today after the market closed.

For the fourth quarter, GoDaddy revenue was up 12% year over year to $874 million. Bookings were up 13% to $943 million.

The domain name segment topped quarterly revenue of $400 million for the first time, turning in $402 million in Q4. That compares with $353 million in Q4 2019 and $387 million in Q3 2020.

Its hosting business grew by 5% and business applications by 20% year over year.

Total 2020 revenue was $3.32 billion, up 11% over 2019. Total bookings also increased 11% to $3.78 billion.

GoDaddy spent more on advertising during 2020 to take advantage of increased interest in web presence services during the pandemic. It said that for each dollar it invested in marketing in 2020, it booked 85 cents of incremental sales. This seems strong given high renewal rates for web presence products such as hosting and domain registrations.

The company announced that Chief Financial Officer Ray Winborne and Chief Legal Officer Nima Kelly are retiring this year. They will stay on board until replacements are found.

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