Donuts, the registry with the largest stable of new gTLDs, has added its 242nd string to its bow. The company seems to have acquired .contact from, nominally at least, smaller portfolio rival Top Level Spectrum. The ICANN contract for the gTLD was transferred to one of Donuts’ subsidiaries a couple weeks ago. According to TLS […]
GoDaddy shutdown over 15,000 subdomains where surprisingly the legitimate owners of the domain did not even know they were hacked. The websites had fake endorsements from celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Gwen Stefani, and Shark Tank to name just a few. Gadgets360 on NDTV.com reported Spammers continue to find new ways to lure unsuspecting users […]
Consider these eight safeguards to keep thieves away from your domain names. If you own domain names–particularly good names–you are at risk of having your valuable assets stolen from you. Thieves will try to compromise your domain registrar account (sometimes by first compromising your email account) and transfer the domains to another registrar. Sometimes they […]
Expirations outpaced new registrations at GoDaddy in December. ICANN has published the latest official data from Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) about the .com namespace. This registrar-by-registrar report covers December 2018. Something interesting happened in December: GoDaddy’s .com domains under management (DUMs) dropped. I’ve tracked monthly numbers for a long time and don’t recall this happening in […]
Private equity firm acquires domain name registrar with 2.5 million domains. Private equity firm Montefiore Investment has acquired domain name registrar Gandi. In a heartfelt blog post, Gandi CEO Stephan Ramoin explained the origins of the company and its values. One thing that’s unique about Gandi is that is has grown mostly by word-of-mouth; the […]
I am asked every week who is the best domain registrar? My answer is always it depends on your specific needs and interests. For me it’s Epik, GoDaddy, Name.com. Epik.com for the pricing, all the tools provided such as escrow, free privacy, marketplace, payment plans, etc… GoDaddy for their reach, their auction platform and that […]
Slovakian registrar WebSupport, which is run by a local politician, has been acquired in a reported eight-figure deal. The acquirer is Loopia, a Swedish registrar backed by Danish private equity firm Axcel. The deal seems to have closed around the same time as Loopia’s acquisition of .SE Direkt from Swedish registry IIS, though news only […]
Endurance International put in a poor show when it came to domains name sales in 2018. Revenue and average revenue per registrant were both down in the fourth quarter and full-year results, which were announced this morning. Endurance’s registrar business includes BigRock, Domain.com, FastDomain, PublicDomainRegistry.com and others. Combined, those four brands account for almost 10 […]
Promo offers cheap domains but they aren’t as inexpensive as they look. Network Solutions sent out a Cyber Monday special that looks tempting: Up to 5 .com, .net, .biz, .info or .org domains for only 50 cents each. The devil is in the very fine print: Domains transferred out prior to one year renewal will […]
Transfer dispute was resolved in a legal settlement. Namecheap and Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX) have entered into a settlement agreement to resolve a transfer dispute. Namecheap, a former Enom reseller, sued Tucows (which now owns Enom) because it said that Tucows was dragging its feet over transferring millions of domain names to Namecheap. Tucows said it […]
