Uniregistry Price Hike Up to 30 Times: can ICANN save the registrants?

The price hike by Uniregistry is a right move executed in a wrong way. With this decision:

• Uniregistry Wins 
• ICANN Loses 
• Old Registrants Lose with no choice 
• New Registrants Lose with a choice 

The steep price increase is likely to make Uniregistry new gtlds more profitable. However, they do not seem to care for their existing registrants which includes me. Businesses use domain for online presence. This domain become a part of their online existence and they cannot afford to lose it. This is where Uniregistry is trying to make money. A bigger problems lies with what would be the future price hikes.

A big problem for existing registrants is illustrated below.

.Hosting tld current and assumed registrations with proposed 15 times price increase:

In the above table you would notice that Uniregistry is making exceptionally good sales even if their number of registration fall by 75% with every price raise.

What about the poor registrants, who developed and promoted their website by using the .hosting and similar new gtld from Uniregistry. Unfortunately, many of the registrants will be forced to abandon their domain as paying that kind of price will be out of question. The money and the efforts that this registrants have spend to brand their domains is all lost. Does Uniregistry care for this?

For a new registrant, they have a choice whether to pay or not for the high price tlds. However, for the existing registrant their business is trapped in this domain and they have no choice but to pay whatever is asked for.

It is understandable for Uniregistry to increase prices as they need to make the tlds profitable, but definitely not by putting the existing customers under the hammer.

A similar price increase took with certain tlds from Donuts. They handled it really well. The price increase was only for the new customers. Old customers remain unaffected. This showed that Donuts registry cared for the business profitability as well as their customers.

Being a fan of new gtld I will stick to new gtld domains, however, I will stay away from registries that charge their existing users exorbitantly and assume that prior notice would be sufficient.

ICANN, as domain registrant we believe that you are their to protect our interest. Kindly intervene this.

New gTLDs: from one month to the other

The second day of each month is a long day for me since it means that I have to update all of my new gTLD reports dedicated to registration volumes. Here is what I noticed:

1. Catering: this report shows few variations between February and March. Trademarks to have applied for their .BRAND new gTLD still don't use it.
2. Photography: the .WEBCAM and .PICS new gTLDs clearly have a problem with their registrations. the .PICS new gTLD almost lost half of its registrations in 3 months. The .ART Top-Level Domain is doing extremely good and domain name registrations increase significantly.
3. City names: the two versions of the .MOSCOW new gTLD (and its IDN version) keep losing registrations.
4. Company names: subscribe to our Newsletter to receive it and notice the change for the .WORLD Top-Level Domains ;-)
5. The Law: there are nine new gTLDs and no evolution since last month. We keep an eye on the .FAIRWINDS new gTLD: the only IP domain name service provider to have applied for its .BRAND domain name extension.
6. Finance: the .LOAN new gTLD has now almost 1.5 million registrations while .BID lost 10,000 registrations. The .CASH progresses too and the .FOREX Trademark registered 24 more domain names since last month (which is a lot for a .BRAND).
7. Colors: .BLUE - .PINK and .BLACK are diving but the .RED new gTLD.
8. Sports: the .CLUB new gTLD looses 30,000 registrations in one month. The .BIKE does much better and .GAMES progresses significantly too. The .SKI sinks into the red but the .MLB trademark registers more domain names.
9. Alcohol: .WINE and .VIN keep increasing (who would have doubted it? Certainly not me);
10. Real Estate: the .REALTOR loses registrations as well as .IMMO and .ARCHI clearly sinks from 4,736 registrations in February to...1,794 in March: what's happening? The .AGENCY gains more than 1,000 more registrations. The .FORSALE - .PLACE and .CREDIT are doing good too.
11. Singular VS Plural TLDs: the .ACCOUNTANT - .NEWS - .PET and .REVIEW are doing great but .WORK is diving.
12. French applicants: .OVH - .BZH and .PARIS are losing registrations.
13. Religion: the .FAITH new gTLD is doing extremely good.
14. Generic domain name extensions (to replace ".com"): .SITE and .ONLINE are highly noticed with an important number of registrations. We will remove the .GDN new gTLD from our listing soon.
15. Cars: Some .BRAND new gTLDs have started to register one more domain name (...)
16. Health: the .DIET domain name extension looses a lot of domain name registrations this month. Still waiting for .HEALTH to launch. Will it ever launch?
17. New gTLDs for French: the list is long and .VOTE is noticed with more domain name registrations.
18. Adults: .SEX - .PORN and .WTF are not doing good this month.

Have a good week-end.

The .HOW new gTLD

Google is offering the .HOW new gTLD. According to the number of results indexed - 1,180,000 from where I am and the 2,495 domains registered - there is something going on.

Have a look here for indexed URLs ending in ".how".

Here is what the .HOW new gTLD applications says:

The proposed gTLD will provide the marketplace with direct association to the term, ʺhow.ʺ The mission of this gTLD, .how, is to provide a dedicated domain space in which registrants can enact second-level domains that position content relating to ʺin what manner or wayʺ one executes a task, as in ʺhow to do ʹsomething.ʹʺ Charleston Road Registry believes that registrants will find value in associating with this gTLD, which could have a vast array of purposes for enterprises, small businesses, groups or individuals seeking to associate with the term ʺhowʺ.

What you missed in our previous Newsletters:

1. List of new Top Level Domains for the most recognizable brands;
2. The Trusted Notifier Program (by Donuts);
3. Article: "Best about .BEST",
4. Rightside $NAME Q4 2016 Results (40 new gTLDs such as .LIVE and .NEWS);
5. Legitimate domains deterred by TMCH service?
6. Notice and Takedown in the Domain Name System (ICANN);
7. .AFRICA top level domain name about to take its place in cyberspace;
8. Bitcoin.Casino;
9. .GLOBAL Welcomes Domain Investors;
10. HOT - .AUDI supports German dealerships;
11. NewG talk #27 (final);
12. ICANN meetings:
1. GNSO New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Policy Development Process Working Group Meeting: 08:30-11:45 Hall B4.2;
2. ICANN GDD: New gTLD Program Reviews: 15:15-16:45 Hall A3;
3. GNSO New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP Working Group Community Dialogue: 17:00-18:30 Hall C1.4;
4. GAC discussion on new gTLDs Policies: (Tuesday, March 14 • 9:00am - 10:30am).
13. La La Land: http://www.lalaland.movie/
14. POLL - Cast your vote (poll on the right column of gTLD.club);
15. Trademark Clearinghouse: the revised report;
16. Ending soon: the .BROADWAY Sunrise Period (Sunday, 5 March, 2017);
17. The luck of the .IRISH
18. Not wrong - Round 2 of new gTLDs: stop complaining!
19. New gTLDs Can Add Meaning & Context to a Domain Name Squatting Dispute;
20. Vanity URL with Your .BRAND: the Key to Supercharging Your SEO?
21. Do you have a Canon ID? (https://myid.canon);
22. Terra Omega (http://www.terra.omega).

Don't know what to do with your .BRAND new gTLD?

This article, written by Andrew Allemann, explains how the Major League of Baseball (the .MLB new gTLD) uses its own domain names ending in ".mlb" as redirections for search engine optimization.

The actual known problem with .BRAND new gTLDs is that they still have no idea what to do with their personalized domain name extension.

If the solution offered in this article also relies on Google's mood, it remains a concrete answer to the number one question asked by existing and future .BRAND new gTLD applicants: what is the benefit of spending so much money in my personalized domain name extension? This article ads one good answer to the question.

Read the article

Come on .RICHARDLI : show the example

New gTLDs need concrete examples to gain in notoriety. Famous people, super stars and other popular singers can help achieve this.

Unfortunately, the only person - worldwide - to have considered creating domain names with an extension ending with her name, DOES NOT USE IT.

Mr Richard Li Tzar Kai, a Hong Kong businessman and philanthropist, created the ".richardli" domain name extension but no domain name has been created yet, but one redirection. When you click on http://nic.richardli, you will notice that it works but it redirects to another website.

If I can understand the move to protect some finance personality's name, I don't understand why superstars with a big ego have missed the opportunity to apply for their family or complete name as a domain name extension. 

Securing a superstar's name as a Trademark is common. Some even spend outrageous amounts of money acquiring and registering domain names to protect the name of their child so...isn't it time to consider the next round of the ICANN new gTLD program to create a serious and unique buzz?

What about a ".kardashian" domain name extension for a www.kim.kardashian ? Or will it be a www.music.beyoncé ?

That old post I just noticed about Nomulus

IP Twins is a popular French law firm to offer a full-package of domain name related services (registration, search, audit and monitoring), web services (web content search, audit and monitoring, AdWords™, auctions) and IP services (consulting, TMCH, new gTLDs applications).

This company is typically the kind of law firm to offer its clients a .BRAND new gTLD solution for the next round of the ICANN new gTLD program.

I just noted this post about Nomulus, pointing to my article following the Nomulus announcement from Google and I appreciate to be quoted in it actually.

Another good read that I just posted.