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Are new gTLDs less secure than conventional ones?
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Are new gTLDs less secure than conventional ones?

jhjh Member
edited October 2017 in General

From the registrant's point of view, are there longevity risks associated with dot-anything domains? For example, could (for example) $20 per year become $100 per year? Could the company offering the gTLD decide to pull it? What if that company is dissolved?

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Comments

  • I think all three are likely to happen to some of these domains.

  • It’s alrady happening. Stick with country, .com or .net for stuff that matters and requires longevity, use the cheap weird domains until they’re no longer heap for everything else.

  • @Nekki said:
    It’s alrady happening. Stick with country, .com or .net for stuff that matters and requires longevity, use the cheap weird domains until they’re no longer heap for everything else.

    Can you name a few gTLDs that have gone defunct?

  • MasonRMasonR Community Contributor

    @sibaper said:

    @IAlwaysBeCoding said:

    Can you name a few gTLDs that have gone defunct?

    The list
    https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/gtld-registry-agreement-termination-2015-10-09-en

    To be fair, all of these tlds were for private use by a single company and were never available for public registration.

    Thanked by 2default sibaper
  • rm_rm_ IPv6 Advocate, Veteran

    It costs $185000 to create one, and then $25000 each year in fees to ICANN to keep it running. And I can totally see some of those TLDs having less than a few thousand registrations (even at <$5 each!), so at some point many or most of these will be running at a loss. First they will try things like this:

    And then as this fails and the number of domains dwindles further, just close down.

    Thanked by 1jh
  • jhjh Member

    Do you think ICANN would get involved to keep the gTLD running somehow and rescue registrants? Seems like a clusterfuck waiting to happen if not.

    From my perspective - there's a name I want and the .co.uk/uk are owned by a professional domain squatter who won't take anything less than £xx,xxx. Dread to think what the .com might go for. With some of the new gTLDs, I could have the name and even though it's not a ".com", it would still be pretty good.

    I stayed away from them until one of our customers spent nearly $50k with us to build a web app that's running on a new gTLD. That got me thinking. They're in the same boat - great name and the conventional extensions are owned by squatters and will probably ever be sold.

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    Are you saying my $6 investment in 10 years' registration for this domain was risky?

    Domain Name: lowend.party
    Updated Date: 2017-02-04T17:51:51Z
    Creation Date: 2017-02-04T17:50:06Z
    Registry Expiry Date: 2027-02-03T23:59:59Z
    
    Thanked by 2jh TDD
  • jhjh Member

    raindog308 said: Are you saying my $6 investment in 10 years' registration for this domain was risky?

    LOL depends if you're going to have a low end party in the next 10 years.

  • My favourite was Walmart's, it's like they actually had a domain in mind, had a couple of seconds before the submission deadline and the guy had a stroke in front of his keyboard and just smashed half the keys and hit enter.

    Thanked by 3raindog308 Pwner paily
  • jh said: From the registrant's point of view, are there longevity risks associated with dot-anything domains? For example, could (for example) $20 per year become $100 per year?

    The price can rise on any domain, this is absolutely not a new gTLD thing.

    Security wise the gTLDs have the EXACT same requirements as before - you need to contract another registrar (one of few approved) to hold a copy of your registration data and your DNS zone among other security fallbacks. This is not included on your ICANN fee (~200k) and comes on top.

    The only exclusions to this are the ccTLDs - they are assigned to a sovereign entity (a country or ruler/ruling family) that defines the management (usually a university or gov office) and is in zero way liable to ICANN how they assign or use it (if at all). They also circumvent most US embargoes by special provisions/legacy (eg. .KP, .SY and .SD).

    rm_ said: It costs $185000 to create one, and then $25000 each year in fees to ICANN to keep it running. And I can totally see some of those TLDs having less than a few thousand registrations (even at <$5 each!), so at some point many or most of these will be running at a loss.

    Some are simply vanity. 250k one time (and 25k recur) is nothing for a medium to large sized company; eg. it's barely over the limit what i'd need management approval for.

    jh said: Could the company offering the gTLD decide to pull it? What if that company is dissolved?

    Yes, with long notice. If they bankrupt the contingency contracts provide management access to the company you selected when your TLD opened first to have your backups, which could either continue operation or wind it down entirely.

    Thanked by 1default
  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    @Nekki said:
    My favourite was Walmart's, it's like they actually had a domain in mind, had a couple of seconds before the submission deadline and the guy had a stroke in front of his keyboard and just smashed half the keys and hit enter.

    https://namestat.org/xn--4gq48lf9j

    Thanked by 1szarka
  • rm_rm_ IPv6 Advocate, Veteran

    250k one time (and 25k recur) is nothing for a medium to large sized company

    For some of those TLDs it appears like these are companies set up specifically to try profiting from running a TLD, they have no other purpose or sources of income, and they are not particularly large-sized.

  • @rm_ said:
    For some of those TLDs it appears like these are companies set up specifically to try profiting from running a TLD, they have no other purpose or sources of income, and they are not particularly large-sized.

    Famous Four Media Limited is such a company who used to offer $6 for 10y domains like .loan or .win which total over 3 million registrations. They already increased the prices to ~ $22 per year with the regular price being advertised as over $40.

  • jhjh Member

    William said: The price can rise on any domain, this is absolutely not a new gTLD thing.

    Yes but we know .com isn't going to jump to $1000 anytime soon. I'm not sure if Verisign set the price purely from a profit perspective but I'd guess not. Uniregistry et al are clearly not in the same boat having forked out recently to register these gTLDs based on estimated demand.

    I'd be annoyed but not seriously affected if they jump to $30 per year for example. I'm concerned about scenarios that would make the domains reasonably untenable.

    William said: Yes, with long notice. If they bankrupt the contingency contracts provide management access to the company you selected when your TLD opened first to have your backups, which could either continue operation or wind it down entirely.

    This is what I was after. Can you link me to the source of that info? How much notice do they have to give and what would be a realistic outcome? Is there anything to protect Joe Public who clearly doesn't keep tabs on how Uniregistry et al are performing?

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    Tion said: Famous Four Media Limited is such a company who used to offer $6 for 10y domains like .loan or .win which total over 3 million registrations. They already increased the prices to ~ $22 per year with the regular price being advertised as over $40.

    So 10 years at $40 is $400...I paid $6. Getting unreasonable resources from a sketchy provider at an unsustainable price...that's a lowend.party.

    image

  • WilliamWilliam Member
    edited October 2017

    jh said: Yes but we know .com isn't going to jump to $1000 anytime soon. I'm not sure if Verisign set the price purely from a profit perspective but I'd guess not.

    Verisign is for-profit, they have obviously a lot of other income and by their unique status (age and integration into core internet parts) they seem to maintain the pricing and such.

    HOWEVER, you forget the insane amount of domains in Verisign zones - based on this and Verisign profits shown the actual cost per domain is hundreds of times lower than what you pay to them as highest level registrar. Based on this, the comparison is unfair.

    ICANN, from what i've seen, does not really imply more than "prepaid is prepaid" (meaning retroactive increases are not allowed, based on reg/transfer/change date) - you can price your gTLD however you want, or not sell it at all (usage, ass root zone adding requires approval, is somewhat required), or raise prices.

    jh said: This is what I was after. Can you link me to the source of that info?

    Sure, how much time do you have? The basic ICANN contract fills about a folder full.

    gTLD: https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/registries/registries-agreements-en

    ccTLD: https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/cctlds-21-2012-02-25-en (again, these are largely about who is elligible to control a ccTLD; the actual usage obliges entirely to the sovereign assigned to.)

  • jhjh Member
    edited October 2017

    William said: Verisign is for-profit, they have obviously a lot of other income and by their unique status (age and integration into core internet parts) they seem to maintain the pricing and such.

    But surely if they hiked .com to $1000 per year, they'd be better off

    William said: Sure, how much time do you have?

    I'll take your word for it then :) What's your opinion on using the new gTLDs for something that needs to be around years from now?

    FWIW - the .com is in use by a successful company in another sector. The .co.uk and .uk extensions are held by a professional domain squatter who will probably never sell them at the prices he's looking for. The .net is at $1500 on Sedo.

  • WSSWSS Member

    @raindog308 said:
    So 10 years at $40 is $400...I paid $6. Getting unreasonable resources from a sketchy provider at an unsustainable price...that's a lowend.party.

    I really wonder how long this crackwhore.date is gonna last.. I'll be pissed if I lose my nameserver domain, though. That's certainly nota.win.

  • jh said: What's your opinion on using the new gTLDs for something that needs to be around years from now?

    Probably more safe than SU, RU or various other ccTLDs that are based in dictatorships or not-very-useful-legal-system countries.

  • SetsuraSetsura Member
    edited October 2017

    @William said:

    jh said: What's your opinion on using the new gTLDs for something that needs to be around years from now?

    Probably more safe than SU, RU or various other ccTLDs that are based in dictatorships or not-very-useful-legal-system countries.

    What ccTLDs do you think are the safest in terms of political and economical stability of the sponsoring country, as well as their inclination to suspend you for silly things without due process? I'd like to register some ccTLD for very long term use, but I'd like to pick one that will actually be around in 10 years, and preferably not in a place that would suspend it over the smallest complaint from some internet troll.

  • WSSWSS Member

    @Setsura said:
    What ccTLDs do you think are the safest in terms of political and economical stability of the sponsoring country, as well as their inclination to suspend you for silly things without due process?

    .com/.net/.org - and Verisign manages .cc, so.. yeah, no.

  • SetsuraSetsura Member
    edited October 2017

    @WSS said:

    @Setsura said:
    What ccTLDs do you think are the safest in terms of political and economical stability of the sponsoring country, as well as their inclination to suspend you for silly things without due process?

    .com/.net/.org - and Verisign manages .cc, so.. yeah, no.

    Those aren't ccTLDs though.

  • WSSWSS Member

    @Setsura said:
    Those aren't ccTLDs though.

    cc is, actually, but I was making light of the fact that can you really trust any of them?

  • @WSS said:

    @Setsura said:
    Those aren't ccTLDs though.

    cc is, actually, but I was making light of the fact that can you really trust any of them?

    I know cc is, obviously, I'm asking @William specifically because I want a ccTLD and he seems quite informed about these matters.

    Thanked by 1WSS
  • mfsmfs Banned, Member

    Don't you trust "due process", "political and economical stability" and so on of your own country? Unless you're a Turkish journalist obviously

  • @mfs said:
    Don't you trust "due process", "political and economical stability" and so on of your own country? Unless you're a Turkish journalist obviously

    Somewhat, I'm from the US, so you can make your own judgement about that one, but have you tried getting a half decent .com/.net/.org? If you want a decent domain you basically are stuck with ccTLDs these days anyway, so I may as well pick a good one. Also .us doesn't allow for whois privacy, so I'd rather not do that.

  • mfsmfs Banned, Member

    Setsura said:

    Somewhat, I'm from the US, so you can make your own judgement about that one

    That's the most un-American thing I've read today

    merrica

    Setsura said: but have you tried getting a half decent .com/.net/.org

    I'm mostly in the game for ccTLDs in the EU region and at least in some States I believe that a ccTLD is now desired more than generic ones. Some businesses care only about accompanying their ccTLD with an .eu for trademark purposes, completely disregarding the .com until you remind them to secure it, I shit you not.

    Given your requisites I'd think that .nl is what you're looking for, but I'm curious to see what's William's take on this

  • SetsuraSetsura Member
    edited October 2017

    @mfs said:

    Setsura said:

    Somewhat, I'm from the US, so you can make your own judgement about that one

    That's the most un-American thing I've read today

    I'm admittedly not very patriotic, but I don't really have any amazingly major issues with the US. Some things could be improved on for sure though, but this is probably cest pit territory.

    Setsura said: but have you tried getting a half decent .com/.net/.org

    I'm mostly in the game for ccTLDs in the EU region and at least in some States I believe that a ccTLD is now desired more than generic ones. Some businesses care only about accompanying their ccTLD with an .eu for trademark purposes, completely disregarding the .com until you remind them to secure it, I shit you not.

    I think for most "major" businesses they still want a .com with .net and .org coming in behind, seems some "cool new" startups will use ccTLDs though like .io since it sounds cool I guess? I've definitely seen more people on ccTLDs though these days, I suspect something to do with all the good original gTLDs being gone, and the new gTLDs mostly being a joke, and potentially unreliable.

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