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A prediction: new TLD registrations will drop in 2019

by — Uncategorized 10 Comments

A drop in total registrations will be a healthy sign of a maturing market.

A drop in new top level domain registration numbers would be a health thing.

This week I published my annual predictions podcast episode featuring 19 predictions for 2019.

Here’s another prediction for 2019: the number of registered domain names in new top level domains will decrease. But this is actually a good thing, as I’ll explain.

The reason for the anticipated drop is a shift in business model at Famous Four Media, which is now Global Registry Services Limited, aka GRS Domains.

The domains under management in this portfolio were built on very cheap (sometimes free) domain registrations. That’s why .loan is the third (or second depending on who you ask) biggest top level domain in terms of volume. nTLDstats shows 2.2 million .loan domain names.

John McCormac, who runs HosterStats.com, has been tracking .loan and other former Famous Four Media domains and says renewal rates for these domains are dismally low when renewal prices are higher. He calculates that renewal rates for 2017 registrations was under 1% through the first three quarters of 2018. So over 99% of those domains dropped.

Historically, these would be replaced by people registering new domains. But GRS Domains started charging higher prices toward the end of last year. Retail prices for .loan domains are now $10+. Here are HosterStat’s new registration calculations for .loan through the first day of each month: Click here to continue reading…

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Registry websites for former FFM top level domains are all down

by — Services 5 Comments

Registry sites with contact information have gone dark.

[Update: I heard back from the court-appointed administrator. The problem has been fixed.]

The registry websites for top level domain names that were formerly owned by Famous Four Media are all down.

Famous Four Media’s domains are now part of a portfolio owned by Global Registry Services (GRS) Ltd after some sort of investor revolt, as outlined at Domain Incite. GRS is being managed by a court-appointed administrator who works at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

With a low-price strategy, these domains have over 4 million domains second level domains. .Loan has 2.2 million domains in the zone file. Other top domains include .win, .men and .stream.

But for about the past week, DNW readers report they have been unable to visit any of the nic.TLD sites such as nic.loan. These sites include abuse contacts for the domains.

I have reached out to the court-appointed administrator for comment.

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What new TLD registrar data can tell you about the health of a namespace

by — Domain Registrars 4 Comments

Which registrars are top for a domain can help explain TLD growth.

It can be difficult to judge the success of a top level domain based on the number of registrations. Unfortunately, that’s all we usually have. But digging down just one level can give a hint about the quality of a namespace’s registrations.

Take a look at the #10 domain on nTLDstat’s charts: .LTD.

It appears that this domain is doing quite well with about 500,000 names in the zone file. But take a look at the breakdown by registrar and things look fishy.

Alibaba is #1 with 93% of the market. West.cn is #2 with another 3% of the market. So over 95% of registrations are at Chinese domain name registrars.

The “Limited” corporate identifier comes from the UK but also extends to former colonies. Think Hong Kong. And there’s a corporate identifier in China that translates to Limited.

But over 93% of registrations coming through one Chinese registrar? Such a big skew to one Chinese registrar is perplexing.

It’s also strange when you see sudden jumps in registrations outside of the launch phases:

This suggests that much of the activity is based on promotions and bulk registrations rather than people registering the domains to use for their business.

Compare this to Google’s .app and its 300k+ registrations. The #1 registrar is GoDaddy, which is a good sign because GoDaddy is by far the largest registrar in the world. #2 is Google, which makes sense given that it’s Google’s TLD. Then you have Namecheap, West263 and Name.com. Seems reasonable.

Are many of these registrations from investors? Sure, but these are also likely spread out across many domain investors. I also like how smooth this registration curve is:

This isn’t to say that there’s a problem with the business model of targeting Chinese domain investors. At the same time, it’s worth looking at the registrar data and trend lines to understand more about how a TLD is growing.

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Will .Amazon ever see the light of day? There’s some movement.

by — Policy & Law 1 Comment

Amazon region countries reject $5 million gift card but ICANN pushes forward to help Amazon.com get .Amazon top level domain name.

Amazon.com’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) long battle to get rights to run the .Amazon top level domain name might still pay off, but countries that are part of the Amazon region continue to play hardball.

On Sunday, ICANN’s board resolved to have ICANN continue serve as a sort of mediator between countries such as Brazil and Peru and the United States’ second most valuable company.  It wants ICANN to come back with a proposal that will allow the region and company to essentially share the top level domain.

Amazon.com applied to run the .amazon domain name as part of the 2014 top level domain name expansion. It was one of 76 domains the company applied for. Some of the domains were generic in nature, and others were branded domains like .AWS.

Brazil and Peru filed an “early warning” through the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) saying that it was opposed to the application for .Amazon. It argued:

[g]ranting exclusive rights to this specific gTLD to a private company would prevent the use of this domain for the purposes of public interest related to the protection, promotion and awareness raising on issues related to the Amazon biome. It would also hinder the possibility of use of this domain to congregate web pages related to the population inhabiting that geographical region.

(No mention was made to how the region has been hurt by the ecommerce company owning Amazon.com.)

The GAC provided official advice to ICANN that it didn’t approve of the .Amazon domain application, and ICANN rejected Amazon.com’s application as a result.

Amazon.com then tried to work with the member states of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO). Its negotiations failed, and Amazon.com filed for Independent Review of the decision to reject its application. It won that review.

Since then, the company has continued to work with the ACTO to come up with a solution that makes them it comfortable. Its latest proposal includes reserving domains the ACTO would like held back, helping ACTO create a website to promote the region (and funding it), and giving a big, fat $5 million gift card to ACTO member states.

Still, no dice.

The board now wants ICANN to present it with a proposal that will let Amazon.com use the domain for its business purposes but appease ACTO members.

In a battle of hard-headed governments vs. the U.S.’s second biggest company, delay is the big winner.

 

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Breaking: Domain name company Donuts Inc. acquired by private equity firm Abry Partners

by — Services 6 Comments

PE snaps up company that manages nearly 240 top level domain names.

Abry Partners, a private equity firm that has completed $77 billion in transactions since it was founded in 1989, is acquiring new top level domain name company Donuts, Inc. Terms of the deal and the expected closing date were not disclosed.

Donuts operates top level domain names such as .guru, .software and .life. It is the largest new top level domain name operator in terms of the number of TLDs managed with about 240 TLDs. About 4 million second-level domains using Donuts’ top level domains are registered.

The company also owns retail domain name registrar Name.com.

Donuts has raised more than $150 million from investors since it was founded in 2010 by domain industry veterans Paul Stahura, Jonathon Nevett, Richard Tindal, and Daniel Schindler. Paul Stahura was CEO until the beginning of 2017, when he became executive chairman and Bruce Jaffe took over as CEO. Since then Tindal and Schindler have left the company.

The company was one of the savviest applicants for new top level domain names. It understood early on that contention sets would likely be settled in private auctions, helping it refill its coffers by losing auctions for the new domains. Its scale has enabled it to operate profitably despite only modest demand for new TLD registrations.

The acquisition of the majority of shares in the company does not include an additional cash infusion into the company. The deal will allow some of the early investors to exit an investment they made eight years ago.

It’s not surprising that a private equity company would be interested in a business like Donuts. Donuts is essentially a subscription business with a very predictable annual renewal rate and cash flow.

Abry Partners makes communications, media, information and business services investments. Former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé is a partner.

This story has been edited to add additional information about Abry Partners.

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