Unstoppable Domains and Women in Tech Global have announced that they plan to apply for a new gTLD when ICANN opens the next application round. They want .witg, which Unstoppable has already launched on its blockchain-based naming system. They cost $10 a pop. Unstoppable says the names come with some social networking features, as well as the usual ability to address cryptocurrency wallets. The company has also recently announced gTLD application partnerships with POG Digital for .pog, Clay Nation for .clay and Pudgy Penguin for .pudgy. Unstoppable is mainly competing here with D3 Global, whic ..read more

GoDaddy founder and former CEO Bob Parsons has published his rags-to-riches autobiography, Fire in the Hole! Subtitled The Untold Story of My Traumatic Life and Explosive Success, the book is co-written with jobbing celebrity biographer Laura Morton, who’s previously worked with GoDaddy-sponsored racing driver Danica Patrick. It promises to detail “the exploits of his youth, his hellish days at the mercy of Catholic school nuns, his harrowing tour of combat duty in Vietnam as a US Marine, his pioneering contributions to the software and internet industries, and his latest ventures in power spo ..read more

ICANN has shirked its compliance duties and is handing GoDaddy a “Get Out of Jail Free” card with proposed changes to their .xxx registry agreement, according to critics. A recently closed public comment period saw a mixed response from the community on whether GoDaddy should be allowed to throw out inconvenient and costly terms of its 10-year-old registry contract and operate .xxx more of less like any other open gTLD. While the deal’s chief critic, consultant and former ICANN director Michael Palage, has made a detailed case explaining why he thinks the amendments should not go ahead, other ..read more

There was almost no movement in the number of .cn domain names registered in 2023, according to the registry. CNNIC had 20,125,764 .cn names under management at the end of last year, compared to 20,101,491 at the end of 2022, according to its recently published end-of-year report. That’s an increase of under 25,000 domains, about a tenth as many net regs as fellow leading ccTLD .de, the domain for far less-populous Germany. CNNIC also tracks the overall number of domains registered in-country, regardless of TLD, and that dropped dramatically again, following the trend of years. There were 31,5 ..read more

GoDaddy last night reported domains revenue ahead of forecasts after it raised its prices and sold more higher-priced domains on the aftermarket. The company’s Core Platform segment, which includes domains and hosting, reported first-quarter revenue up 4% compared to a year ago at $725 million, with domains revenue driving growth, up 7% percent to an unspecified amount. “Our growth was driven by strong demand for domains in the primary and secondary market, increased pricing in the primary market and a higher average transaction value in the secondary market,” CFO Mark McCaffrey said in prepar ..read more

D3 Global has announced yet another likely new gTLD applicant from the blockchain space. The specialist consultancy said it has partnered with MAKE and the Casper Foundation, a software developer and its non-profit backer respectively, to apply for .cspr when ICANN opens its long-awaited next round of new gTLD applications in a couple years. It’s the seventh such deal D3, which says it can help blockchain companies link their alternative namespaces to the DNS, has announced since its launch late last year. It is also working with partners to apply for .ape, .core, .vic, .near, .gate, and .shib ..read more

A back-up in case the whole music thing doesn’t work out? Taylor Swift has become the first celebrity to attempt to defensively register her name in the .post gTLD, which is currently in the middle of a newly extended and incredibly belated sunrise period. According to the registry’s web site, the domain taylorswift.post has been applied for by DNStination, a MarkMonitor subsidiary used to register names on behalf of clients. The .post relaunch is pretty unusual in that all sunrise period applications are being published on the registry’s new web site, with a user-friendly form for challenging ..read more

Andorra’s ccTLD is to become the latest potential domain hack for the Anglophone world, when the local registry massively liberalizes its registration policies later this year. .ad domains are due to become available to any registrant globally starting in October, via an as-yet-unpublished list of approved registrars. General availability wholesale prices appear to be €15 ($16) a year. Currently, the domains are only available to Andorrans manually going through the government trademark office, but it seems the registry, Andorra Telecom, has moved to a standardized EPP back-end with all the us ..read more

The domainer trying to get his hands on all the remaining single-character .com and .net domain names has re-filed his lawsuit against ICANN. Bryan Tallman of VerandaGlobal.com (dba First Place Internet) has filed an amended complaint in a California court, after the judge threw out his initial complaint in March. He alleges deceptive trade practices and breach of contract, among other things. His claim is that he has sole rights to all unregistered single-character .com and .net domains, such as 1.com and a.net, because he’s registered the matching domains in Verisign’s internationalized doma ..read more

ICANN is looking for $8 million of cost savings, $3 million more than it expected a quarter ago, amid gloomy predictions about the domain industry’s likely performance this year. The Org last week told community members that it’s having to revise its expected revenue down by $3 million to $145 million after it became clear domain sales won’t be as good as previously thought. The new budget is due to be approved by the board this coming weekend. “ICANN faces an inflation of its costs and also happens to face a lack of inflation of its funding,” CFO Xavier Calvez said on one of two conference ca ..read more