.name Grandfathered

265 pointsposted 2 hours ago
by p4bl0
(neil.fraser.name)

36 Comments

giancarlostoro

an hour ago

> 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...

nticompass

6 minutes ago

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...

_blackhawk_

2 minutes ago

Definitely email the registrar. Maybe it might work?

BoxOfRain

a few seconds ago

While it won't lessen your frustration, I applaud your use of the interrobang. That punctuation mark needs wider use.

zamadatix

16 minutes ago

Congrats to those wanting to keep their domains! I'm surprised they went with perpetual (well, as much as anything is) support, i.e. allowing renewals and such rather than just letting it naturally expire (the initial proposal was to immediately cease these records at a given date with no clear communication on how they'd be protected or not from re-registering the upper level domains or not).

kwanbix

an hour ago

Why would they even want to close it? It is probably close to 0 cost tot hem. Or am I wrong?

lambda

31 minutes ago

It works differently than pretty much every other TLD, which means it's different code paths to support.

Many registrars don't support the unique 3rd level domain setup for .name, so it can be hard to find registrars that properly support it.

There's also an associate email redirect service, which is unique to .name and probably costs money to run and maintain.

It's probably easier to support, and more valuable to sell second level .name domains.

Pretty terrible that they were considering just dropping tens of thousands of customer registrations however.

clickety_clack

an hour ago

My thoughts also, but maybe they can make more from a few sites like baby.name than they can from personal domains.

Tepix

an hour ago

Vive la résistance!

Resistance is not futile.

cobbzilla

an hour ago

> to my lawyers Jan, Flip and Diégo who threw the book at ICANN

Resistance with a strong case and competent lawyers is not futile.

dataflow

an hour ago

And with a lot of money to burn.

a1o

an hour ago

How does one register a domain under .name ? I can’t find info through search because it discards the dot no matter what I try.

toast0

an hour ago

Same as any gTLD, pick your favorite registrar and they probably support it. Give your registrar money, they'll give the registry money and boom. (more or less)

When .name was new, you may have needed to contract with the registry directly, it was an early new gTLD and I don't remember if they started with the registry/registrar split or not.

Afaik, new registrants are not able to register a third level domain, but second level domains have been available for a long time.

SahAssar

an hour ago

Available under standard registrars that offer many TLDs, like inwx.com: https://www.inwx.com/en/domain/check?domain=testtest123.name...

peesem

an hour ago

but which support the actual third-level domains? for example, my last name is already taken as a .name domain by verisign, what if i want my firstname.lastname.name domain?

zamadatix

7 minutes ago

One can't (officially) register such 3rd level domains anywhere anymore.

It's just a combination in the ambiguity of what "it discards the dot" should mean in GGP's message combined with the article already clarifying 3rd level domains are not available on .name anymore leading to a lot of confused comments.

xigoi

16 minutes ago

The third-level domains are still being discontinued, it’s just that people who already have one get to keep it.

mercurywells

an hour ago

You'd have to try to find the contact that owns lastname.name and work out a private deal - you won't get ICANN protections though.

lambda

an hour ago

Did you read the link?

"Although they will be closing new registrations for 3rd-level .name domains, all existing domains (including this website) and email redirects will remain indefinitely."

They were apparently planning on shutting down the whole TLD. They will be leaving it up for existing registrants, but not allowing new registrations.

ksala_

43 minutes ago

No, they were not planning that. This is only about 3rd level domain as the paragraph you quoted says. Every other TLD don't sell those (afaik). Normally "someone.name" would be a domain, and they would own all the subdomains. .name allowed you to register "one.someone.name" and "two.someone.name" as completely separated domains with completely separated owners. I understand why they should grandfather in existing domains but this was just madness.

lambda

40 minutes ago

Ah, fair enough. I kind of thought that third level domain registration was the whole point of the .name TLD, so I was interpreting it as shutting it down.

So the weird part then comes in: are all second level domains that have third level registrations now reserved? Do they stop being reserved if the last third level registration expires without being renewed?

ksala_

34 minutes ago

Good question. Yeah no idea - the email linked in OP says they're going to send a new proposal, I'm assuming it will cover how they're planning to handle it. And I guess that yes blocking second level domains that have a third level already registered is the pragmatic choice.

doublepg23

an hour ago

I've had a .name for almost a decade now and was not aware of it's history.

Shame I didn't register on my lastname .name , I had thought it was a much newer gTLD.

xydone

23 minutes ago

Certainly nice to know they would've almost certainly proceeded as normal if the concerns didn't blow up online

charlieyu1

28 minutes ago

Good for them. I just wish I could register a new .yu domain…

kinabalu76

38 minutes ago

glad this got resolved, bummer it was thrown into question at all

eks391

an hour ago

So glad this happened. When I first heard, I assumed that all the folks wronged would simply be disregarded even though Verisign was blatantly breaking consumer protection laws (I assume. If it wasn't, those laws are incomplete). The fact that Verisign even tried still makes me upset though. It's really annoying what several companies will do as long as their hand isn't forced due to legal or social repercussions