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DENIC to remove all personal info from Public Whois on .De domains

by — Policy & Law 1 Comment

Germany’s .DE domain will show even less information in Whois going forward.

Whois information for one of the world’s largest country code domain names is about to change.

DENIC, the group that runs Germany’s .DE domain name, announced changes that will slim down an already restricted Whois output. The group reviewed its Whois policy as GDPR gets ready to go into force.

The change will involve adding two non-personalized email addresses that will be managed by the registrar. One address will be for general and technical requests and the other will be for abuse.

Whois records will show the domain status, the two email addresses, and technical information (e.g., nameservers). Public Whois records will not show any personal data.

Users who show DENIC that they have a legitimate interest in personal data will be able to request it through a semi-automated system.

DENIC already shows limited information in Whois compared to what other top level domains show thanks to Germany’s Federal Data Protection Law.

The .De domain has over 16 million registrations.

DENIC doesn’t see much threat from new TLDs

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

DENIC downplays threat of new TLDs against .de, citing latest eco survey.

eco – the Association of the German Internet Industry released its third Registrar Atlas this week. The Registrar Atlas is a survey of businesses that offer domain names. The non-scientific survey targets mostly Germany, but includes respondents from eight countries primarily in Europe.

.De registry DENIC sponsors the survey, along with a number of other registries such as Verisign.

DENIC issued a press release (pdf) about the survey results. Not surprisingly, DENIC’s release focuses on downplaying the effects of new TLDs on the German domain registration market.

The organization reports that more than 80% of German registrars that participated in the survey don’t expect new TLDs to cause a drop in domain registrations for .de.

There are a number of German geo top level domains on the horizon, which could conceivably compete with .de. Companies have applied for .cologne, .bayern, .berlin, .hamburg, .koeln, and .nrw (North Rhine-Westphalia). I believe that’s the highest concentration of geo TLD applications for any country. Many applicants were no doubt attracted by the success of .de, which is generally considered the most successful country code domain name.

eco’s report suggest that many of the respondents are taking a cautious, low investment approach to new TLDs. This shouldn’t be a surprise given that many of them count on hosting and other services for much of their revenue. Many of the businesses plan to sell new TLDs as resellers rather than getting their own accreditations to each registry, which would be a cumbersome process for a small domain seller.

DENIC’s press release about the survey also reports that “three thirds” of participating German registrars think the share of new TLDs in their overall inventory of domains five years from now will be less than 10%.

With numbers like that, DENIC has nothing to worry about.

TV.de Auction Ends Over $400,000

by — Domain Sales 5 Comments

TV.de leads .de domain name pre-auction.

When .de registry DENIC starts releasing previously unavailable domain names tomorrow, you can bet a lot of Sedo’s partner registrars will be hammering the registry for TV.de.

A “pre-auction” for TV.de closed at 279,499 EUR, which is about $419,000 USD at today’s exchange rates.

The auction is still ongoing as I write this (thanks to Sedo’s web site failing under the bidding activity), but only one character .de domain names remain open for bidding. And, in what may be a lesson to other registries planning to release one character domain names, the one character domains aren’t selling for as much as many of the two character domains.

This morning I started tracking the top couple dozen domains in terms of current bid price. They’re below, with the first number in Euros and the second in US dollars. I suspect bidding would have gone even higher had the domains been guaranteed to the winner; but right now bidders are counting on Sedo to acquire the domains for them.

(unofficial results)

tv.de 279,499 $419,249
pc.de 158,700 $238,050
com.de 135,623 $203,435
bad.de 52,000 $78,000
net.de 44,111 $66,167
co.de 41,000 $61,500
öl.de 40,000 $60,000
it.de 36,100 $54,150
hp.de 31,000 $46,500
iq.de 31,000 $46,500
hm.de 30,500 $45,750
pr.de 30,000 $45,000
123.de 28,800 $43,200
dm.de 27,000 $40,500
24.de 26,100 $39,150
los.de 24,500 $36,750
bar.de 22,500 $33,750
ok.de 21,956 $32,934
dj.de 20,600 $30,900
ey.de 20,500 $30,750
tm.de 13,500 $20,250
888.de 12,100 $18,150
030.de 10,099 $15,149
666.de 10,000 $15,000

Sedo 1 and 2 Character .De Domain Name Auction Ends Today

by — Domain Sales 5 Comments

.De auction ends today.

Sedo’s one and two character .de domain name “pre-auction” ends at noon Eastern today. .De is the country code for Germany, and is arguably the most successful country code domain name on the web.

.De registry DENIC is releasing one and two character domains, as well as other domains that previously were not allowed to be registered (such as those containing only digits). It announced the change on October 15, leaving just a week for organizations to work on plans to acquire the domains as they become available on October 23.

Instead of auctioning the domains off, DENIC is releasing them on a first-come, first-served basis. That’s where Sedo comes in. The company, which is based in Germany, is holding an auction before the release of the domains. It has then teamed up with a number of registrars to try to grab the names that receive bids as they become available. If Sedo’s partner registrars are unsuccessful during the “drop”, Sedo will attempt to acquire the domain name in the secondary market on the high bidder’s behalf.

As of late last night, many domains had already crossed into the five figure (EUR) range in the auction.

Bidding is available here.