Even as the number and type of domain names continues to expand, the number of companies that control all these assets dwindles. The most recent news: Verisign has acquired the London-based, Carlyle-backed company that runs the .name top level domain. The news has not been formally announced, but Verisign, which also runs the .com, .net and .org domains, among others, sent out an email to all registrars with the news:
We are pleased to announce that VeriSign closed on an agreement to acquire Global Name Registry, Ltd., which includes management of the .name top level domain on October 1, 2008. We believe the addition of .name is a natural fit, as we have run the technical backend in support of .name for more than five years.
What does this mean for existing registrars?
Your interface to VeriSign for .name domain names will continue to operate as it has in the past with no changes.
We are currently assessing enhancements to the service offering that meet the needs of the registrar channel in servicing the consumer market. Please look for service notices in the coming weeks that will outline those changes and the steps you need to take advantage of those features.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Customer Service at info@verisign-grs.com.
Very truly yours,
PJ Bolanos
Vice President, Global Customer Support
VeriSign, Inc.
The size of the transaction is not being disclosed. Other investors in the company include Northzone Ventures AS, and Verdane AS.
I worked briefly with the .name guys in 2001 (and I have also consulted to Verisign in the past), although I don’t have any financial stake in the company or this transaction.
Big changed in the domain industry recently…So this means that if anyone renews their .name a large share of the payment goes to Verisign and a percentage to registrar? How does a company, in this case Global Name Registry, actually acquire an entire top-level domain in the 1st place?
VeriSign doesn’t run .org anymore. It’s run by PIR.org.
I think the price was somewhere around $0.00. .NAME was an epic failure, a reflection of how out of touch ICANN has been over the last 10+ years.
Verisign agreeing to continue running it is more than payment enough.
.name? how about .lame
VeriSign continues it’s dominance of a stupid, worthless industry. You’re blue ocean strategy is paying off in spades, Dumbzos.
Great sale. the new extensions coming any day now will only more flood and confuse the online community.
The founding fathers can all be found at the top. there only one top level and that is dot com.
Your integrity as a business can be guaged by where you are on the extension scale. If your not a dot com you will always be looking up and asking what if? users will alway know whos been around the longest.
.com .net .org .mobi .tv .biz .pro .news .me .name
LocationExpert.com
So many domains, so little time and money to buy them all.
The .name domain is a failure simply because it just isn’t cool. It’s the fat kid on the playground. But it’s getting harder and harder to get the domain you want, so they’re going to have to come up with some kind of domain extension that people DO like. I don’t mind .org at all, and .net isn’t too bad.
I suppose .tv has it’s uses, but until broadband is in virtually every household, and the TV and movie companies lighten the hell up with their restrictions (read: find a way to make money on the web), the .tv domain is going to be largely unused.
Verisign probably bought it cheap. That extension did not fly as high and still doesn’t. They would enjoy the economy of scale and keep bumping up the wholesale price on a constant basis as they’re already doing with .COM/NET
Congrats to the team.
.name is great for perfect domain hacks.
Hi, I saw this referenced in http://www.Subl...nalMessages.Com and I agree with you, Mike, that .Name is lame. For that matter, though, so is .Travel, .Coop, .Museum, .Biz., .Aero and every other non-dot .COM.
For ICANN to think that the newly approved vanity TLD’s (which are expected out in 2009) will receive any better of a welcome is a joke. How about .Fail?
If people keep thinking .Com is always going to be king, then how will the INTERNET evolve?
As of now, It’s a “we’ve always done it that way” world.
There’s plenty of room for innovations and new ways of thinking! Give it a shot!
It seems that .name is the ultimate vanity TLD. The problem is that it is facing competition from .me ccTLD. In real terms, the vanity marketshare (personal name domains) of any TLD is small. Most of the personal name domain traffic ends up in ccTLDs or .com rather than .name.
Cities all over the world are starting to look at the prospect of having their Dot-City GeoTLD. The City of New York just passed a resolution to acquire Dot-NYC (webdocs.nyccouncil.info/textfiles/Res%201495-2008.htm?CFID=1628032&CFTOKEN=74834652). Other Dot-City domains are also being sought after. Visit http://www.dotberlin.com regarding Dot-Berlin and http://www.dotparis.net regarding Dot-Paris.
Dot-City GeoTLDs may appeal to the social networking crowd since these type of domains are likely to be supported by local communities and the respective cities.
Search engines such as Google’s and Yahoo’s allow users to search a keyword within a particular domain space, so GeoTLDs may improve our ability to perform geographical searches.
i think the city should run an alternate
root. http://www.nyc.nyc
To learn more about the efforts behind Dot-NYC, visit Connecting.nyc Inc.’s website at http://connecti...yc.org/main.php. Connecting.nyc Inc. is a not-for profit created to acquire and develop the .nyc TLD. They are working at the grass-roots level to create awareness of Dot-NYC. I’m not sure how they plan to work with the City of New York on this Dot-City GeoTLD. Connecting.nyc Inc. also has a blog at http://www.open...n-for.nyc/blog/.
I’m enjoying the .Name domains personally.
so .Name is just a regular extension like .com , .net, .mobi , .info , .us, .ws , .nz and .jp ?
http://www.Drewryonline.net
.Name doesn’t sound all that….lol
Versign, the Micro$oft of registrars. Name and Me are lame in my opinion.
Domainers doth protest too much. All their money is tied up in .coms, which is why you always hear them bleating about how .com will always be king of the hill. Maybe so, but business owners are getting less and less willing to pay premium prices for .coms to the squatting, ex-used-car-salesmen greaseballs that populate the domain industry.
Seems that my ascii.name will worth something then, such a lame and stupid suffix
looks like it resolved to something useful. It can’t be that bad.
.com will always be the king.
The king of what?
who needs .name when you’ve got http://chi.mp
I still see .name struggling to make a name for itself so this news might not have affected much of the daily online activities. As Web Dropoff said, .com will always hold the throne as long as “type-in” traffic exists….
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