Recently in affilias Category
Afilias, which runs .info and provides registry services to a lot of other domains, has acquired the .mobi registry operator - mTLD Ltd.
The acquisition was officially announced on February 11th 2010, with both Afilias and mTLD releasing press releases etc., as well as a message to pass on to any registrants who might be concerned by the acquisition.
Is this good news or bad news?
I'd suspect that it's good news. It's certainly not bad!
It will be interesting to see what, if any, changes Afilias will bring to the .mobi namespace.
You can read the official announcement here
The acquisition was officially announced on February 11th 2010, with both Afilias and mTLD releasing press releases etc., as well as a message to pass on to any registrants who might be concerned by the acquisition.
Is this good news or bad news?
I'd suspect that it's good news. It's certainly not bad!
It will be interesting to see what, if any, changes Afilias will bring to the .mobi namespace.
You can read the official announcement here
Afilias are running a competition with a prize fund of $7500 for the first prize.
Full details of the competition and the entry form are on the official competition site
Full details of the competition and the entry form are on the official competition site
The announcements by Verisign, PIR and Afilias of price increases in com,net,org and .info shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone.
However if the year on year price increases do leave an interesting question - is there an upper ceiling?
Will the next price increase have a negative impact on some of the low cost registrars? (The last one didn't seem to have much impact)
What, if anything, are the registries doing to earn the extra fees?
In the case of .org their implementation of DNSSEC may bring about greater stability and security, but what of the other registry operators?
Are their costs increasing?
Verisign would like us to believe that their price increases reflect their ongoing investment in stability and scale, but do the end users really get to see any benefits?
The case of .info, however, is slightly different. Price increases in .info may actually help the public's perception of the TLD, though this will only really work if the increases are uniform and not diluted by promotional pricing.
However if the year on year price increases do leave an interesting question - is there an upper ceiling?
Will the next price increase have a negative impact on some of the low cost registrars? (The last one didn't seem to have much impact)
What, if anything, are the registries doing to earn the extra fees?
In the case of .org their implementation of DNSSEC may bring about greater stability and security, but what of the other registry operators?
Are their costs increasing?
Verisign would like us to believe that their price increases reflect their ongoing investment in stability and scale, but do the end users really get to see any benefits?
The case of .info, however, is slightly different. Price increases in .info may actually help the public's perception of the TLD, though this will only really work if the increases are uniform and not diluted by promotional pricing.
It's official.
DotDK is to come under new management from early 2009.
The DotDK Society have released a full press release detailing some of the reasons why their new management will be a marked improvement for stakeholders.
Afilias has been chosen to handle the registry backend, so the full deployment of EPP is to be expected.
More information is available on the DotDK site
Both Stephane and Francesco have posted on the subject as well.
DotDK is to come under new management from early 2009.
The DotDK Society have released a full press release detailing some of the reasons why their new management will be a marked improvement for stakeholders.
Afilias has been chosen to handle the registry backend, so the full deployment of EPP is to be expected.
More information is available on the DotDK site
Both Stephane and Francesco have posted on the subject as well.
In some ways the failure of .eu to capture hearts and minds makes me sad. I'm European. I'd like to think that a European namespace could be a success, but that seems to be a misplaced desire.
As I mentioned some time ago, the only way to grow a namespace or TLD is through usage. Once people start to see a domain extension in "action" then they begin to start using it. If people start using it then everyone benefits - registry, registrars, "normal" registrants and domain investors alike.
When was the last time you saw a high profile .eu site?
You'd have to think long and hard about it, wouldn't you?
Even the "big boys" aren't really using their .eu domains actively.
Google.eu doesn't have any A records ie. it doesn't point anywhere.
Yahoo.eu points to a Yahoo site, but not to the European one!
Ebay.eu actually does what you'd expect it to do, but it was the only one I could find when I did a quick search this evening.
Why do I bring this up?
Last week John McCormack sent me some preliminary statistics on domain usage for the EU namespace and the figures were quite worrying. He's since published a blog piece with a breakdown of the stats and if I were in Eurid I'd be sobbing.
You can read John's article, but the basic underlying truth is hard to avoid.
Adoption of .eu has been pretty bad and that's being diplomatic about it.
While there may be a large number of domains registered only a very small fraction are in active use, with many simply redirecting to a ccTLD equivalent or being parked.
Launching a new TLD is not easy.
Afilias have resorted over the past couple of years to literally giving away domains for free and it looks like Eurid are adopting a similar approach.
DotMobi, however, have worked hard to build up interest in their TLD among users of all shapes and sizes and got the investors interested as well.
What will the future hold for .eu?
Will their PR pay off or will it all fizzle out?
As I mentioned some time ago, the only way to grow a namespace or TLD is through usage. Once people start to see a domain extension in "action" then they begin to start using it. If people start using it then everyone benefits - registry, registrars, "normal" registrants and domain investors alike.
When was the last time you saw a high profile .eu site?
You'd have to think long and hard about it, wouldn't you?
Even the "big boys" aren't really using their .eu domains actively.
Google.eu doesn't have any A records ie. it doesn't point anywhere.
Yahoo.eu points to a Yahoo site, but not to the European one!
Ebay.eu actually does what you'd expect it to do, but it was the only one I could find when I did a quick search this evening.
Why do I bring this up?
Last week John McCormack sent me some preliminary statistics on domain usage for the EU namespace and the figures were quite worrying. He's since published a blog piece with a breakdown of the stats and if I were in Eurid I'd be sobbing.
You can read John's article, but the basic underlying truth is hard to avoid.
Adoption of .eu has been pretty bad and that's being diplomatic about it.
While there may be a large number of domains registered only a very small fraction are in active use, with many simply redirecting to a ccTLD equivalent or being parked.
Launching a new TLD is not easy.
Afilias have resorted over the past couple of years to literally giving away domains for free and it looks like Eurid are adopting a similar approach.
DotMobi, however, have worked hard to build up interest in their TLD among users of all shapes and sizes and got the investors interested as well.
What will the future hold for .eu?
Will their PR pay off or will it all fizzle out?
According to post earlier today on Jothan Frakes' blog the .me registry is going to be managed by Aflilias in partnership with GoDaddy.
Francesco posted about the tendering process back in November and while his post does cover most of the issues with the tender he obviously hadn't considered the possibility of a registry operator teaming up with a registrar - but who could have?
What will be interesting to see is how they manage the registry moving forward. Is it likely to end up being converted into something that it wasn't intended to be originally? (think .tv or .ws) Or will it manage to strike the balance between catering for the region's residents while also serving the global market? (Unlikely, but you never know!)
Only time will tell! (And yes - I have used that phrase before)
Francesco posted about the tendering process back in November and while his post does cover most of the issues with the tender he obviously hadn't considered the possibility of a registry operator teaming up with a registrar - but who could have?
What will be interesting to see is how they manage the registry moving forward. Is it likely to end up being converted into something that it wasn't intended to be originally? (think .tv or .ws) Or will it manage to strike the balance between catering for the region's residents while also serving the global market? (Unlikely, but you never know!)
Only time will tell! (And yes - I have used that phrase before)
Desiree Miloshevic will be talking at the Oxford Internet Institute on January 28th in London.
This open public forum will look at the history and future of the Internet Domain Name System (DNS). It will provide an opportunity to commemorate Jon Postel by looking back at the 25 year history of the DNS but also the 10 years of its management under ICANN; and a vision of what the future holds over the coming years.The event is sponsored by Afilias.
Domain pricing is always an emotive subject.
In recent discussions among Nominet members it came up as part of a discussion on drop-catching and domaining. Some people feel that the fees are too high, while others feel that they need to be increased significantly in order to discourage domainers.
Within the Irish internet community the upcoming change to policy regarding "personal domain names" has led to some discussion on how registrars set their pricing.
While at an ICANN level there's been a lot of mixed messages flying about.
For anyone interested in domains at any level it can all get a bit confusing.
So what exactly is going on?
ICANN announced a drop in their fees a few months ago. Several of the larger ICANN registrars passed on the savings directly to their clients, with some of them even refunding people.
Of course registrars can be a fickle bunch, so you may not always get the full picture.
Do the registrars pass on savings to their clients all the time?
In short - no.
Do registrars pass on costs to their client?
A lot of the time - yes.
So what costs are affecting registrars?
Both Verisign and Afflilias are upping their fees as of October 15
And some of the registrars will have to pass on those increases to their clients since their pricing has always been set with such a narrow margin.
Enom, for example, has already announced a 50 cent increase for all their resellers for com / net / org / info / biz / name and .us.
But what about .mobi?
From what I have been able to gather a lot of the registrars have been treating .mobi as some sort of "premium" domain name since its launch last year.
What does that mean?
Basically we've all been charged extra for the "honour" of registering the domains.
DotMobi domains are not manually checked, as is the case with say .ie domains, so there's no reason for charging a premium on them unless you want to do so as a marketing ploy.
Dotmobi, it transpires, are currently offering registrars promotional pricing on .mobi domains, but a lot of registrants will never see the full benefit of the pricing promotion as the registrars will be pocketing the profit.
If your registrar isn't offering any discount at present on dotmobi domains, then maybe you should ask them why....
In recent discussions among Nominet members it came up as part of a discussion on drop-catching and domaining. Some people feel that the fees are too high, while others feel that they need to be increased significantly in order to discourage domainers.
Within the Irish internet community the upcoming change to policy regarding "personal domain names" has led to some discussion on how registrars set their pricing.
While at an ICANN level there's been a lot of mixed messages flying about.
For anyone interested in domains at any level it can all get a bit confusing.
So what exactly is going on?
ICANN announced a drop in their fees a few months ago. Several of the larger ICANN registrars passed on the savings directly to their clients, with some of them even refunding people.
Of course registrars can be a fickle bunch, so you may not always get the full picture.
Do the registrars pass on savings to their clients all the time?
In short - no.
Do registrars pass on costs to their client?
A lot of the time - yes.
So what costs are affecting registrars?
Both Verisign and Afflilias are upping their fees as of October 15
And some of the registrars will have to pass on those increases to their clients since their pricing has always been set with such a narrow margin.
Enom, for example, has already announced a 50 cent increase for all their resellers for com / net / org / info / biz / name and .us.
But what about .mobi?
From what I have been able to gather a lot of the registrars have been treating .mobi as some sort of "premium" domain name since its launch last year.
What does that mean?
Basically we've all been charged extra for the "honour" of registering the domains.
DotMobi domains are not manually checked, as is the case with say .ie domains, so there's no reason for charging a premium on them unless you want to do so as a marketing ploy.
Dotmobi, it transpires, are currently offering registrars promotional pricing on .mobi domains, but a lot of registrants will never see the full benefit of the pricing promotion as the registrars will be pocketing the profit.
If your registrar isn't offering any discount at present on dotmobi domains, then maybe you should ask them why....
According to recent reports Microsoft's MSN messenger is blocking URLs using the .info extension
It seems that this change only happened in the last couple of days.
Has Affilias been made aware of this change?
Is it an anti-phishing / anti-spam measure?
Full story here
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