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Accounting firms can now apply for .CPA domains

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Firms can now apply for domains similar to their company name.

A picture of a tax return from 2019 and a mileage log with the word ".CPA" in yellow letters American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and its CPA.com unit have launched an application process for early access to .CPA domain names.

This process is different from sunrise and a separate non-Trademark-Clearinghouse trademark phase the organization is running.

Only CPA firms — not individual Certified Public Accountants — can apply during this early phase. Applicants who get a .CPA domain prior to general availability must put the domain to use by, at minimum, forwarding the domain to their existing website.

Applications for this phase must be received by October 31, 2020. The phase is only for registering domain names similar to the firm’s name, not generics like tax.cpa.

Domains will be allocated on a “systematic logic-based process”, according to the .CPA website. I inquired with a support agent about what this process is. The agent told me:

We have a process that we can’t share due to manipulation of the process. Please just choose domains that are most similar to your own.

It will be interesting to see how applications for the same name will be allocated.

Non-premium domain names cost $225 per year.

General Availability for .CPA begins January 15, 2021. At that point, any licensed CPA can register a domain.

AICPA likely paid more than $2 million to secure the rights to the .CPA top level domain.

The most popular second level domains for dot-brands

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Home leads the way, but companies are also using them for hiring.

Chart showing most popular second level domains under .brands, including home, my, jobs, careers, and cloud

Home is the most popular second level domain under dot-brands. Chart courtesy MarkMonitor.

One of the nagging questions about dot-brand top level domains that match trademarks is what second level domains companies will use.

We all know that the home page for Fox is Fox.com. But if the company were to switch to .Fox, how would you access the site? www.fox? home.fox? go.fox? A second level domain is necessary.

It appears that most companies are choosing home as their primary second level domain for dot-brand top level domains.

MarkMonitor keeps tabs on all of the second level domains registered under dot-brand domains and found that 66 have registered home.brand. That’s the most popular second level domain. (That doesn’t mean that those companies are using it for their primary website.)

Looking at all registered second level domains, the other top popular domains are my, careers, jobs, and cloud. This gives some indication of how brands are using their top level domains, even if they haven’t switched over from .com or another extension.

Neustar, a registry services provider, uses home.neustar for its site.

You can download MarkMonitor’s most recent new TLD report, including more data on second level domains under .brands, here.

Intel and Metlife terminate their top level domains

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Two large companies ditch their dot-brands.

Logo for intel

Chip company Intel and insurance giant Metlife have canceled their dot-brand top level domain names.

The two companies notified ICANN about their decisions last month, and ICANN published preliminary determinations not to transition the domains this week.

Intel originally applied for .intel and .powerbook. It withdrew the .powerbook application, but .intel proceeded to delegation. The company created a handful of second level domains including software.intel, ark.intel, and jobs.intel but only forwarded the domains to pages on Intel.com.

Metlife does not appear to have actively used .metlife.

Last week, ICANN published a termination notice from Special Broadcasting Service Corporation for .sbs.

 

MMX swings to profit in 2019, 25% revenue growth

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MMX (Minds + Machines) had a good year in 2019, and 2020 looks solid barring COVID-19 impact.

Picture of stock ticker board with words "earnings announcement" below it

Accounting wise, 2018 was a bad year for new top level domain name company MMX (London AIM: MMX). It wrote off $11.3 million related to a contract to run .London, had bad debt write-offs of $2.1 million, and one-off costs of $1.4 million. It lost $12.6 million for the year.

The good news is that this pushed a lot of water under the bridge, making 2019 a stellar year for the company, as detailed in the company’s annual report.

In 2019, MMX reported a profit of $4.7 million, or 0.51 cents per share.

Sure, that was helped by a couple of accounting gains, but anyway you look at it, 2019 was a much better year for the company.

Revenue increased 25% to $18.9 million, helped in part by a full year of the contribution of ICM Registry, a business it acquired in 2018.

Renewal revenue was $11.7 million, or 62% of the total.

Operating EBITDA was up 79% to $6.4 million.

And Adultblock, a new brand protection product related to the ICM Registry portfolio, generated $1.1 million in recognized revenue during the last two months of 2019.

While ICM had a lot to do with MMX’s changed fortunes, the company also saw positive movement in some of its other top level domains. In Q4, .VIP grew by over 360,000 registrations. Importantly, 267,000 of these were standard sales at GoDaddy. (Read: not heavily discounted sales to China.)

In its annual report, the company notes that it is closely watching the impact of COVID-19. For now, it expects the immediate-term impact to be on one-off brokered sales but those account for less than 10% of the company’s sales.

As it monitors the impact, the company has delayed its decision on a previously-announced dividend until September. In the meantime, it’s going forward with share buybacks of its (now cheaper) shares.

MMX’s report is perhaps the first financial report by a publicly-traded domain name company in the wake of the spread of COVID-19. While the company is hopeful, it provides caution that everyone in the domain business should heed:

“But to believe that we are fully insulated from the global crisis would be unwise.”

Domain name company Radix posts $21 million revenue in 2019

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Profits surge 54% in the latest year.

Picture of stock ticker board with words "earnings announcement" below it

New top level domain name company Radix generated over $21 million in revenue in 2019, growing 26% compared to 2018. Net profit grew 54% year-over-year, and the company says that Q4 was its strongest quarter so far. These numbers are net of all discounts and rebates.

The company is privately held and does not disclose all of its financials. But the breakdown of revenue appears healthy:

  • 64% standard renewals
  • 25% standard new registrations
  • 11% premium sales, of wich 58% is renewals

On a revenue basis (not domains), the United States accounted for 50% of revenue. Germany was second at 12% and China at 7%.

Radix operates ten new top level domain names (.online, .store, .tech, .website, .space, .press, .site, .host, .fun and .uno) plus the .pw country code domain name.

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