Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News & Website Stuff

Domain Name Industry News and Website Stuff

Featured Domains

CentralNic reports 2017 earnings, merger with KeyDrive still in the works

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

Company reports revenue increase in 2017 and hopes to merge with KeyDrive in Q3.

Domain name company CentralNic (London AIM: CNIC) published its 2017 annual report (pdf) today.

Topline revenue increased from £22.1m in 2016 to £24.3m in 2017. Profit after tax was basically flat at £1.0, but the company’s Adjusted EBITA measure grew from £5.5m to £6.6m.

CentralNic divides its business into three groups:

Retail – domain name registrars such as Instra and Internet.bs
Wholesale – registry services, such as managing the back end for .xyz
Enterprise – mostly premium domain name sales, but also corporate domain management and dot-brands

Revenue grew in the retail and wholesale divisions but slipped in enterprise. CentralNic has been on a premium domain hamster wheel that the company admits is running out of energy.

On the wholesale side, revenue growth came mostly from .xyz and Radix’s top level domains.

The company renegotiated its contract to run .xyz. It extended the contract until 2032 and structured it as a flat-fee agreement, with some increases possible based on volume.

CentralNic completed its acquisition of Slovakia’s .sk country code by buying SK-NIC on December 5, 2017. This contributed £0.3m of revenue for the 26 final days of the year. That business has nice margins; the adjusted EBITA margin was 79% for that period.

The company said merger discussions with KeyDrive are continuing and it hopes to complete the combination in Q3 of this year.

It also said it plans to offer online security and brand protection services to its corporate clients.

Share5
Tweet14
Share
Email
19 Shares

.XYZ gets another win against Verisign

by — Policy & Law 2 Comments

Appeals court decision gives XYZ another chance to be awarded legal fees.

It’s been over three years since Verisign (NYSE: VRSN) sued XYZ, the seller of .xyz domain names, for false advertising.

The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of XYZ in November 2015 but that wasn’t the end of it. XYZ asked the court to award attorney’s fees, at which point Verisign appealed the summary judgment decision to the Court of Appeals.

XYZ prevailed again in the appeal, which meant that the lower court could then consider XYZ’s request for attorney’s fees. The lower court found that the case did not qualify as exceptional and denied XYZ’s request for Verisign to pay its growing legal bills.

Then it was XYZ’s turn to appeal. It argued that the District Court applied the wrong standard–“clear and convincing evidence” instead of “a preponderance of evidence”– when considering the legal fees.

The Court of Appeal just found (pdf) in XYZ’s favor. It has remanded the case to District Court, agreeing that the lower court applied the wrong standard in its decision. It also clarified that XYZ does not need to show that Verisign acted in bad faith to prove an exceptional case worthy of legal reimbursement.

As with the original lawsuit, the stakes are higher for XYZ and Verisign. The millions in legal fees XYZ has accrued are a big deal to it and just a rounding error to Verisign.

Share7
Tweet20
Share
Email
27 Shares

CentralNic is on the premium domain hamster wheel

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

The premium domain hamster wheel will be in effect later this year.

CentralNic is on a hamster wheel with premium domains.

Domain name registrar and registry company CentralNic (AIM: CNIC) reported first half 2017 financial results today.

The company reported first half revenue of £10.59 million, up 18.5% from £8.93 million in the first half of 2016. But this was down from £13.20 revenue in the second half of last year.

While that might suggest the company is going to see a drop in revenue this year, never fear…CentralNic has a trick up its sleeve. It’s the premium domain hamster wheel.

The reason CentralNic had a stellar second half last year was that it sold off some of its premium domains. One customer paid £3.555 million for premium domains. Click to continue reading…

Share4
Tweet24
Share9
Email
37 Shares

XYZ files opening brief in request for Verisign to pay $1.6 million

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

Domain registry says lower court erred in three ways.

.XYZ’s fight with Verisign continues.

XYZ.com LLC and Daniel Negari have filed their opening brief in an appeal against Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) over legal fees.

If you haven’t been tracking this saga, here’s a quick overview:

Verisign, the registry that operates the .com and .net top level domains, sued the .xyz operator alleging false advertising. Basically, Verisign said XYZ inflated its success and disparaged Verisign’s domains.

After extensive discovery, a judge tossed out Verisign’s suit on summary judgment. XYZ then asked the court to require Verisign to pay its $1.6 million legal bill, but that was put on hold as Verisign appealed the lower court’s ruling to an appeals court.

The appeals court ruled against Verisign and then the lower court considered the request for fees. It denied the request other than about $57,000 in discovery fees.

XYZ appealed the court’s decision to not award legal fees. In its opening brief, XYZ makes three arguments:

1. Proving that the case is exceptional should only require a preponderance of the evidence rather than clear and convincing evidence.

2. XYZ doesn’t need to show bad faith on the part of Verisign.

3. Circumstantial evidence is sufficient to prove facts.

The opening brief is available here (PDF).

Share3
Tweet13
Share115
Email
16 Shares

.XYZ working to make domains available in China again

by — Policy & Law 10 Comments

Domains haven’t been available at Chinese domain registrars since early May.

Many Chinese domain name registrars stopped offering .xyz domain names back in May at the behest of China Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

At the time, XYZ CEO Daniel Negari said “CentralNic is updating RNV providers to ensure there is stability in the RNV process and do our best to stop fraudulent registrations and abuse. We remain committed to a zero tolerance policy on abuse and I think we are on the right track to maintain that.”

CentralNic is XYZ’s registry services provider. RNV is Real Names Verification.

Nearly three months later, .xyz domains still aren’t available through Chinese domain registrars. I reached out to Negari to ask what’s going on. He released this statement to Domain Name Wire:

We received approval from ICANN for a new RNV solution. We are going through the contract amendment process now and will be live in China again after that. 

As a leading registry operator, we put compliance with our registry agreement and international laws as a top priority, which is why we have been working with CentralNic and ICANN to operate a compliant RNV solution in China. My understanding is that XYZ is one of the few registries that is operating under 100% clear approvals, while many others are in a grey zone or maybe be operating without any ICANN approvals at all.

Share3
Tweet22
Share1
Email
26 Shares