> After a long and expensive battle, news just dropped that Verisign is retracting its plan to terminate 22,000 domain names and email redirects. Although they will be closing new registrations for 3rd-level .name domains, all existing domains (including this website) and email redirects will remain indefinitely.
This was what I figured SHOULD happen when they did this. Allow existing customers to keep renewing, but nobody new allowed, if a tld frees up over time, reclaim it completely and sell it off.
What they were proposing should really be illegal...
giancarlostoro
WHAT‽ I let my "first.last.name" registration expire because of the impending shutdown!
I did notice that my domain kept working past the supposed shutdown date, but I let the domain registration expire.
I'm so mad now! I assume there is no way to get my domain/email forwarding back :(
I suppose I could try to ask the registrar, but I highly doubt they can do anything...
(Edit: I'm not actually mad, but it was annoying to have to move accounts from my first@last.name email to another one)
nticompass
It is best to stick to the main top level domains. I bought into multiple 'new' domains and most of them caused me issues. A few of them jacked up their prices like crazy compared to when I first
bought them. They can also be difficult to move between providers.
Unfortunately I am stuck in commitments on a few of these domains and just had to eat the cost increases, the rest I moved to .com/.net.
.consulting was the worst offender.
soupbowl
There is a residual cleanup problem with registrants who were with Tucows/OpenSRS and had their domains come up for renewal since late August. Tucows would not renew them and it was hard for registrants to find another registrar that would. Doytchin spent quite a bit of time looking and I think the only one he found that would accept a transfer of both the third level domain and the email forwarding service was 007names.
This meant a lot of domains expired. Worse, some entered the Redemption Period, where they can no longer be transferred to another registrar - the only option is to redeem through Tucows and they will not do it.
The practical solution seems to be:
1. If the domain is expired but still within the grace period, transfer it now;
2. It it entered the redemption period, wait until it becomes available again (up to 35 days) and re-register through a registrar like 007names to recover it.
Quite unsatisfactory on the part of Tucows (the biggest registrar of third level domains by far), to let all this happen and they really should offer subsidised redemption for affected domains in the redemption grace period.
Why would they even want to close it? It is probably close to 0 cost tot hem. Or am I wrong?
kwanbix
I wonder why couldn't Verisign just grant most people the second level domains here. I imagine there aren't too many people holding onto 3rd level .name domains here and the set of people holding onto 3rd level domains that share a second level domain with someone else is probably very small, a few hundred at most.
For all the ones holding exclusive second level domains, just give them the second level domain. For all the ones holding shared second levels, offer a buyout and/or allow parties to negotiate with each other on a shared ownership structure of the second level.
mlefer
Great to see a sane outcome but if I relied on one of these domains I'd still be moving away from it. Clearly they have no desire to maintain it.
padjo
Vive la résistance!
Resistance is not futile.
Tepix
Nicely done.
(I moved a few family email accounts from .name to .net years ago because it was a much cheaper option and the .name TLD was still so uncommon in our bubbles it led to questions when they gave their email addresses to someone else.)
comments (10)
This was what I figured SHOULD happen when they did this. Allow existing customers to keep renewing, but nobody new allowed, if a tld frees up over time, reclaim it completely and sell it off.
What they were proposing should really be illegal...
giancarlostoro
I did notice that my domain kept working past the supposed shutdown date, but I let the domain registration expire.
I'm so mad now! I assume there is no way to get my domain/email forwarding back :(
I suppose I could try to ask the registrar, but I highly doubt they can do anything...
(Edit: I'm not actually mad, but it was annoying to have to move accounts from my first@last.name email to another one)
nticompass
Unfortunately I am stuck in commitments on a few of these domains and just had to eat the cost increases, the rest I moved to .com/.net.
.consulting was the worst offender.
soupbowl
This meant a lot of domains expired. Worse, some entered the Redemption Period, where they can no longer be transferred to another registrar - the only option is to redeem through Tucows and they will not do it.
The practical solution seems to be: 1. If the domain is expired but still within the grace period, transfer it now; 2. It it entered the redemption period, wait until it becomes available again (up to 35 days) and re-register through a registrar like 007names to recover it.
Quite unsatisfactory on the part of Tucows (the biggest registrar of third level domains by far), to let all this happen and they really should offer subsidised redemption for affected domains in the redemption grace period.
troyrollo
derhuerst
kwanbix
For all the ones holding exclusive second level domains, just give them the second level domain. For all the ones holding shared second levels, offer a buyout and/or allow parties to negotiate with each other on a shared ownership structure of the second level.
mlefer
padjo
Resistance is not futile.
Tepix
slow_typist