PIR (Public Interest Registry) run the .org domain name registry. They're owned by the Internet Society and it's ISOC who handle appointments to the PIR Board. Yesterday ISOC announced two new appointments to the PIR Board: Lena Beck Rørvig and Michael Silber. Here's the full release: The Internet Society today announced the appointment of Lena Beck Rørvig and … [Read more...] about PIR Gets Two New Board Directors
registries
Donuts Offers “Extended Flexibility” to Ukrainian Registrants
Donuts, who also own Afilias, have contacted registrars to offer assistance with impacted registrants in Ukraine. Unlike during 2020 when many registries waived fees on RGP and other, concrete, things, this is pretty open. They're simply saying that they'll work with registrars to deal with issues caused by the war: It goes without saying–the people of Ukraine should not … [Read more...] about Donuts Offers “Extended Flexibility” to Ukrainian Registrants
Tucows Enters Domain Registry Market
Tucows has entered the domain name registry business. Earlier today the Toronto based domain name registrar announced that it was acquiring Frank Schilling's UNR which was his backend registry business. The transaction announced today appears to be solely for the backend services and not any domain extensions. Schilling had previously sold off his registrar and … [Read more...] about Tucows Enters Domain Registry Market
Radix Reports Premium Sales up for H1 2021
Radix registry, who run a bunch of new TLDs including .tech, .space, .online, .press and more have released their premium sales report for H1 2021. It's been a good year for the company so far, with their overall premium sales up 43% from H2 of 2020. Here are a few other salient data points: $2.91M in premium revenue$1.67M coming from renewals43% growth in premium new … [Read more...] about Radix Reports Premium Sales up for H1 2021
PIR (.org) Hiring CTO
PIR aka the .org registry, is hiring for the role of Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Up until 2018 PIR did not have a CTO, which is when they hired DNS veteran Joe Abley to fill the role. Fast forward three years and Abley has moved on to pastures new (he's now over at Neustar / GoDaddy registry doing funky DNS stuff) and so the role is up for grabs again. The job is being … [Read more...] about PIR (.org) Hiring CTO
Secretive Investment Company Ethos Capital Now Owns Donuts
Keeping track of the merger and acquisitions over the last while is proving to be headache inducing. A lot of the players have switched around and the number of transactions does not show any sign of slowing down. The latest announcement is that Ethos Capital, the rather secretive investment company, is now the majority shareholder of Donuts. Ethos had previously tried to … [Read more...] about Secretive Investment Company Ethos Capital Now Owns Donuts
EURid Tweaks Post-Brexit Handling of Impacted Domains
From January 1st 2021 the UK is no longer part of the European Union and consequently .eu domain names can no longer be registered or held by UK individuals or businesses. EURid, the .eu domain name registry, operate the registry under contract to the European Commission, so they are bound by whatever rules the EC put on them (within reason). Over the last couple of years … [Read more...] about EURid Tweaks Post-Brexit Handling of Impacted Domains
Ethos Capital is Buying Donuts
Ethos Capital is buying a controlling stake in domain registry company Donuts. Donuts recently announced that it was buying Afilias and now it too is being bought. Ethos Capital is the entity that attempted to acquire PIR, the .org domain name registry. Ethos Capital described itself at the time of its attempted acquisition as being "firmly rooted in the belief that … [Read more...] about Ethos Capital is Buying Donuts
What is .art Playing at?
When new TLDs were being introduced one of the arguments in their favour is that they'd offer more choices to registrants. Earlier today the .art registry made a rather odd announcement: https://twitter.com/Art_Domains/status/1346502397644972039 Apparently they're now offering "3rd level domains" What now? According to the blog post: ART’s third-level domains … [Read more...] about What is .art Playing at?
Donuts’ Afilias Deal Closes
Back in November many were surprised by the news that Donuts was acquiring Afilias. While mergers and acquisitions happen all the time, this deal was big news and to many observers probably a little surprising. Yesterday the deal closed. The "change of control" had been on the agenda of a recent ICANN Board meeting, but nothing of any substance came out of that. … [Read more...] about Donuts’ Afilias Deal Closes