Daily Wrap: Sony Uses Their gTLD In Bond Promotion, .CLUB Premium Sales and CentralNic Warns Customers of Fraud

Sony Bond Moneypenny imageSony has begun using their .sony gTLD using the assistmoneypenny.sony site as a promotional tool for the latest James Bond film, with site visitors being asked to help the secret intelligence service track Moneypenny’s assailants. While they also have the equivalent .com domain registered, it redirects to their .sony domain

Sony Bond Moneypenny imageSony has begun using their .sony gTLD using the assistmoneypenny.sony site as a promotional tool for the latest James Bond film, with site visitors being asked to help the secret intelligence service track Moneypenny’s assailants. While they also have the equivalent .com domain registered, it redirects to their .sony domain.

DotClub logoPremium sales totalled $125,372.25 for sales of .club domains, including SnapNames sales, in October taking total cumulative sales of registry reserved premium .club names came to $1,268,199.27. The highest single sale remains Wine.club at $140,000.00.

The registry was happy with October sales, noting it “was a solid month for .club premium name sales, scaring up some strong deals through multiple channels including registrars, registry direct, brokers and aftermarket. In addition, we ended the month by launching an auction of 25 2-letter names and one 1-letter name (C.club) on EJEE’s EachNic.com platform in China. The fully bi-lingual (English and Chinese) auction is currently underway, and has been off to a good start, with the first 10 names all meeting or exceeding their reserves and successfully selling.  Results of the auction will be reflected next month in our November report.”

CentralNic logoLondon-based registrar CentralNic is warning customers of a postal fraud campaign targeting domain name registrants, and registrars. In an announcement, CentralNic said they have received copies of several fake invoices sent by post to domain registrants, which claim to be issued by CentralNic, but which direct the recipient to remit payment to bank accounts that are not theirs.

New gTLD Registrations Surge Past 6 Million With More Winners and a Few Losers

New gTLD registrations are still surging upwards with the six millionth registration occurring on 7 June according to nTLDstats.com. Currently there are over 6.033 million domains registered.

New gTLD registrations are still surging upwards with the six millionth registration occurring on 7 June according to nTLDstats.com. Currently there are over 6.033 million domains registered.The six million registrations are across 650 gTLDs, although 281 of these have less than 100 registrations with the bulk of these still in their Sunrise periods or are brand gTLDs. And 104 have more than 10,000 registrations.So there have been quite a few winners. And a few losers. Among the winners is .xyz, the market leader in the total registration count with well over 960,000 registrations. And even though it is estimated several hundred thousand of these were given away for free, it would still be far and away the largest gTLD when it comes to paid registrations.Second on the list of total gTLD registrations is .网址 (.website) however almost all of these registrations are to one registrar and it’s difficult to know how what they’re being used for. Third is .science that has gained close to 300,000 registrations in under four months with one registrar accounting for 85 percent of all registrations.Fourth is one of the big success stories – .club. The gTLD boasts that their 247,000 domains, along with all of the Donuts domains across their gTLDs, are fully paid for. Fifth is .party and it, like .science, has the same registrar making up 90 percent of its 187,000 registrations.The Chinese .wang is sixth with 173,600 registrations and appears to be doing well while .berlin is seventh but this includes a number of free domains. From a peak of over 157,000 registrations it is now down to 153,200 registrations three months into the first of the renewals. But next week over 60,000 domains that were either given away or sold cheaply come up for renewal and undoubtedly it will take a hit. But even if none of these are renewed, an unlikely worst case scenario, it would still be the eleventh largest of the new gTLDs.Rounding out the top ten are .top (129,300 registrations), .link (120,100) and .realtor (102,500). The latter’s numbers though are one of the more unlikely to be sustained. The registry operator has given away domains to real estate agents across North America, but with highly restrictive conditions, it’s unlikely that many will put up money when it comes time for a paid renewal.The .nyc gTLD is also performing well in eleventh place with 79,400 registrations, while .click (69,800) and one of the earliest gTLDs and a Donuts gTLD .guru (69,000) are also doing well.Indeed, while there are some that one could argue should have or could have done better, or even much better, the only other gTLD whose numbers one could question is .ovh among the top 103 with registrations above 10,000. The .ovh gTLD has close to 63,300 registrations but 90 are reserved and the rest through one registrar. And none appear to have been paid for.The most successful backend registry is Donuts with 1.365 million registrations across 186 gTLDs while CentralNic has 1.106 million registrations across 22 gTLDs followed by Neustar with 933,400 registrations across 48 gtLDs then ZDNS (588,100/14), Uniregistry (445,800/21), Rightside (281,500/36), Afilias (212,500/64), TLD-BOX (207,400/7) and Minds + Machines (199,645/24).Some of the losers would appear to be .whoswho, never likely to have big numbers of registrations, but seven months into General Availability has 61 registrations. And while there are others with lower numbers, .rich hasn’t proved very rich with 406 registrations so far and .HIV has struggled with the registry operator now offering the gTLD for sale hoping their unique model for raising funds for charity has some appeal to a larger registry that bring some economies of scale to the project. And in the battle of Democrat v Republicans, the Democrats are winning with 1,356 registrations to 805. But it couldn’t be said either has set the political establishment alight!

CentralNic and NCC Group join forces to protect businesses and their brands from domain abuse

CentralNic logo[news release] CentralNic, one of the world’s leading backend distribution platforms for new Top-Level Domains, has partnered with global information assurance specialist NCC Group, in order to protect its growing list of clients from domain abuse

CentralNic logo[news release] CentralNic, one of the world’s leading backend distribution platforms for new Top-Level Domains, has partnered with global information assurance specialist NCC Group, in order to protect its growing list of clients from domain abuse.

NCC Group’s Domain Assured service uses expert threat intelligence to deliver a complete picture of a domain’s threat landscape. This allows registry operators to monitor the overall health of their domain portfolios and major domain abuse types such as spam, typo squatting, hosting of malicious code and phishing. The Domain Assured service also has a rapid response system to immediately notify clients of any attacks.

By integrating the Domain Assured service with its other offerings, including policy assistance, sales and marketing, billing and financing, CentralNic provides the operators with increased visibility of threats and additional assurance that their domains, and consequently their brands, are protected.ncc group logo

CentralNic currently has 21 delegated TLDs on its platform, as well as a stream of already-contracted and newly migrated TLDs that will be launching throughout 2015.

Ben Crawford, Chief Executive Officer at CentralNic, said: “Domain Assured allows our clients to take a proactive approach to seeking out abuse, while having a real-time snapshot of a TLD’s landscape.

“It allows TLD operators to clearly demonstrate their compliance with ICANN’s anti-abuse requirements for new gTLDs, as well as providing peace of mind to all Internet users. It’s a great addition to the services NCC Group offers to make the Internet safer.”

Rob Cotton, Chief Executive Officer at NCC Group, said: “Signing up to Domain Assured further cements CentralNic‘s profile as one of the most service-oriented of the TLD backend providers, as well as underlining their focus on compliance and best practice.”

New gTLD Registrations Pass 5 Million Mark With Many Performing Well

The five millionth registration of domain names across the 588 new gTLDs for which there are at least one registration occurred last week. Currently there are 5,037,000 registrations according to nTLDstats.com.

The five millionth registration of domain names across the 588 new gTLDs for which there are at least one registration occurred last week. Currently there are 5,037,000 registrations according to nTLDstats.com.Registrations continue to grow for many of the new gTLDs, but many of the winners are starting to stand out. The largest of the new gTLDs is still .xyz with over 875,000 registrations or 17.32 percent of all registrations, but potentially 40 percent of these have been given away in a promotion by Network Solutions where their existing .com registrants were given the corresponding .xyz domain, and hence renewal rates would be expected to be low. But even so, it would still see .xyz easily the largest of the new gTLDs.The second largest going by registrations is .网址 (.website) but this currently has 349,226 registrations, with all but nine registered to the Internet Domain Name System Beijing Engineering Research Center LLC and the remaining nine registered to the registry.One of the biggest successes has been .club, third on the nTLDstats.com list, which boasts all of its 206,000 registrations are full paid for.Of all the city gTLDs, .berlin remains the largest with 157,000 registrations and the fourth largest gTLD, but in June they will face a big hit when up to 90,000 domains given away or sold cheaply in a promotion come up for renewal. So far the gTLD that commenced its General Availability in March has seen a good renewal rate and registrations are still increasing.A number of other city gTLDs have also done well, with success varying largely due to eligibility policies and marketing. The .nyc (New York City) gTLD is the eleventh largest, has almost 75,000 registrations and eligibility is restricted to New Yorkers, while .london is the thirteenth largest with over 60,300 registrations and no eligibility restrictions. And numbers don’t tell the whole story with many of the geographical gTLDs. Several operators such as .tirol are using theirs as a promotional tool for tourism and business.There are seven gTLDs in total with over 100,000 registrations. The others are .wang with 138,800 registrations, .science (108,800) and .link (106,500). But the .science gTLD has over three-quarters of its registrations (77.92%) with one registrar.And there are 94 gTLDs with over 10,000 registrations and 163 with more than 5,000.To date there are, from this writer’s counting, 334 gTLDs to have entered General Availability with 226 registrars handling registrations for at least one gTLD. On backend registries, Donuts is easily the largest and like .club, claim all 1.354 million domains registered (26.81% of all registrations) among their 173 gTLDs to be paid for. CentralNic is the second largest gTLD registry by registration numbers with 973,800 domains registered across their 21 gTLDs.But not all gTLDs can ever expect such large numbers. Small cities and organisations haven’t budgeted for such numbers. And there appear to be some gTLDs that just won’t make it.There are also a number of the new gTLDs that appear to be not making targets or registration numbers that would make them viable. One of these is .realtor aimed at the real estate agent market in North America. Even though there are 95,800 domains registered, they have all been given away free. The operator had plans to give away 500,000 domains in the first year but is falling well short, in part due to restrictive conditions on what strings could be registered. It seems sometimes even if something is free it’s not worth it.Others that would appear to be struggling would be .whoswho with 31 registrations, .rich (66), .संगठन (.organisation – 123), .ltda (153) and .wed (204). But time will tell.Overall there are 34 gTLDs with less than 1,000 registrations that have entered General Availability. One, .vote has 653 registrations while .voting has over 11,800 registrations. The latter has been in General Availability for eight months, the former for two months. But after two months in General Availability .voting had well over 10,000 registrations.

CentralNic Sells $2.5m In Premium Domains As Its gTLDs Perform Well

CentralNic logoCentralNic announced Monday it has sold a number of premium domain names for US$2.5 million, which means it is expected profits for the year ending 31 December 2014 will be in line with market expectations

CentralNic logoCentralNic announced Monday it has sold a number of premium domain names for US$2.5 million, which means it is expected profits for the year ending 31 December 2014 will be in line with market expectations.

In its announcement, CentralNic said it owned a portfolio of almost 20,000 premium domains and the proceeds of which will be utilised for further growth within the Group and to acquire additional premium domains to augment the existing portfolio.

The announcement included that CentralNic has successfully launched a total of 11 new gTLDs in 2014, including: .wiki, .ink, .xyz, .bar, .rest, .website, .press, .host and .space, as well as the new generic .co.com and .com.se as a new domain for Sweden.

CentralNic also expects to be the exclusive registry service provider to at least 35 new TLD’s over the next two to three years. The Group has also been confirmed as the exclusive global distributor and billing agent for the following new TLDs to be launched from 2015:
.site – ranked by industry experts as among the top five most desirable new TLDs
.design – a domain suited to graphic, web and interior designers
.tickets -a full ticketing transactional platform integrated with a .tickets domain name.

Other CentralNic new TLDs still to be launched include .college, .fans, .feedback, .contact, and .pid.

CentralNic and its clients are in contention with other applicants to secure an additional 20 new TLDs which include .love, .online, .gay, .app, .blog, .cafe, .web, .style, .forum, .art, .golf, .llc, .school, .store, .shop, .music, .doctor, .bank, .ping, and .baby.  The Group is also in discussion with applicants for new TLDs who would like to transfer from their existing provider to CentralNic’s platform.

CentralNic CEO Ben Crawford said:  “CentralNic and its clients have a number of high quality new TLDs and with our partners we intend to build on our results to date in leading the re-organisation of the domain name system.  This year we have been successful in diversifying our business by entering the retail, enterprise and premium domain markets, where we have a commercial interest in a significant portfolio of premium domain names of varying values. We look forward to continued development of our registry business and these new lines of business as we enter 2015.”

CentralNic Purchases DomiNIC

CentralNic logo[news release] CentralNic PLC, the global provider of registry and registrar services, announced today that it acquired the assets of DomiNIC GmbH, including the DomiNIC domain management software, the product of twenty years of development with a blue chip customer base in the German-speaking countries

CentralNic logo[news release] CentralNic PLC, the global provider of registry and registrar services, announced today that it acquired the assets of DomiNIC GmbH, including the DomiNIC domain management software, the product of twenty years of development with a blue chip customer base in the German-speaking countries.

The DomiNIC products include:

  1. DomiNIC for Brands – a domain name and user management tool, delivered as Software as a Service, ideal for .brand gTLD registries, large domain portfolio holders, and their advisors.
  2. DomiNIC for Registrars – tools for registries and resellers, and to enable hosting companies, ISPs and other organizations to sell domains.

Ben Crawford, CEO of CentralNic, said: “The DomiNIC software products are the best we found anywhere in the world and already hugely successful in Germany, so we jumped at the opportunity to acquire the business and introduce it to a global client base.

CentralNic has also entered into a strategic alliance with German company DNSXperts as an outsource supplier of software development and support services for the DomiNIC software, allowing CentralNic to focus its own resources on rapidly growing the user base of DomiNIC via its global relationships and sales channels.

CentralNic has made two appointments to manage the acquired business. Marc McCutcheon has joined CentralNic as Manager overseeing the operations of the DomiNIC business. Marc previously spent seven years with leading corporate registrar and domain consultant NetNames. CentralNic has also appointed Luigi Turano as Business Development Manager of DomiNIC. Luigi spent the last six years as an analyst and consultant with Accenture and Wipro.

Crawford added, “When we listed on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market in September, we announced our intention to build our own customer-facing business as an important use of funds, and since listing we have moved rapidly and efficiently to achieve this serious competitive advantage for this CentralNic business.”

FEATURES OF DOMINIC FOR BRANDS

  • Most advanced user administration system on the market with thousands of different levels of user access easily administered
  • Connection to the registrars of your choice
  • Connection of the user administration system to your preferred Name Servers for zone file management
  • Point of entry zone file validation as well as scheduled zone file changes
  • The ability to schedule creation, modification or removal of domains/zone files
  • The ability to create a list of “Bad Words” (offensive terms, competitor names, unannounced ventures, etc.) which can either be blocked or set to require approval by an administrator
  • The ability to fix the domain data or name servers used for domain registration by certain users
  • The ability to specify the language that the console is displayed in
  • The ability to create internal validation requirements (such as a Trademark license upload for a licensee account) as well as internal approval or notification system for domain requests

FEATURES OF DOMINIC FOR REGISTRARS

  • Fully automated workflow for domain and zone management
  • Integration of web hosting packages or terms of contract
  • Easy integration with new registries
  • Seamless integration of your CRM and billing processes
  • Fine-grained concept of authorizations and roles
  • Approval workflow to protect against unauthorized changes
  • Support of New gTLDs
  • Customizable white-label retail site

With the onset of the new GTLD program, registrars face the challenge of connecting their customers to a multitude of new registries and new domains. DomiNIC takes the complexity out of domain management by standardizing registry processes, and automating workflows.  It integrates seamlessly with existing systems, and provides registrars with the most advanced domain administration console on the market. It is a world leading registrar administration system, reducing cost, and increasing efficiency when managing large scale domain portfolios.

Details of the DomiNIC products may be found here: dominic.de

Radix Registry Awards Contracts for .WEBSITE, .HOST, .SPACE And .PRESS to CentralNic

CentralNic logo[news release] CentralNic Group PLC has exclusively signed a Registry Service Provision contract with Radix Registry FZC (“Radix”), one of the leading applicants for new TLDs with 27 applications, for its four uncontested Top Level Domains, empowering customers globally to register domain names ending .website, .press, .host or .space (as alternatives to traditional endings like .com and .co.uk)

CentralNic logo[news release] CentralNic Group PLC has exclusively signed a Registry Service Provision contract with Radix Registry FZC (“Radix”), one of the leading applicants for new TLDs with 27 applications, for its four uncontested Top Level Domains, empowering customers globally to register domain names ending .website, .press, .host or .space (as alternatives to traditional endings like .com and .co.uk).

  • .website is a true alternative to the .com TLD; it is open and available to all for the full range of possible uses
  • The .press TLD will provide its users with a platform to share opinions and disseminate information.  The primary target market will comprise of journalists, bloggers, media professionals, news providers and book publishers
  • The exclusive new gTLD for the web-hosting industry, .host, is aimed to be the extension of choice for web hosts, Approved Scanning Vendors (“ASVs”), Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”), cloud service providers and other such entities
  • .space will serve to provide both individuals and organisations across the globe with a blank canvas to create their own online space

Commenting on the exclusive agreement with Radix, CentralNic CEO Ben Crawford said: “Radix is one of the most experienced and best resourced companies in the new generic Top-Level Domain (“gTLD”) space, as well as having a deep understanding of the domain industry.  In fact, Radix’s gTLD applications include every one of the top 7 “most valuable new gTLDs,” as rated by domain valuation experts Sedo1.  CentralNic is excited to be able to continue to realise its objective of increasing the number of domain extensions on our global distribution platform by adding these fantastic TLDs to the portfolio that we offer to retailers (“registrars”) globally.”

Bhavin Turakhia, Founder and CEO of Radix said: “Radix decided to award these contracts to CentralNic following our excellent experience partnering with them on the .pw and .in.net domain extensions.  They have proved to us the value of their integrated global registrar network, their technical strength, their deep expertise in selling domains, and their ability to work with our people as a united team.”

The first of the Radix TLDs is expected to launch through CentralNic in Q2 2014.  Domain name retailers around the world will obtain .website, .host, .space and .press domain names via the CentralNic platform to sell to end users.

CentralNic Launches .XYZ and .WIKI gTLD Sunrises

CentralNic logoThe Sunrise periods have commenced for the .xyz and .wiki gTLDs, with .xyz commencing on 20 March

CentralNic logoThe Sunrise periods have commenced for the .xyz and .wiki gTLDs, with .xyz commencing on 20 March.

The .xyz gTLD is being touted by CentralNic as “for every website, everywhere” with a mass market global appeal, low cost and a multi-million dollar promotional budget. The Sunrise is a 60 day end date Sunrise with .xyz an opportunity for corporate clients to secure their trademarks and protect their brands under the new generation generic domain.

And .wiki, unsurprisingly, is being touted by CentralNic as being for businesses to build their own Wiki pages.

Coming up in April, CentralNic is launching the Sunrise periods for .bar and .rest among others on the 9th aimed at bars and restaurants globally. The Sunrise will close on 7 June, followed by a Landrush from 9 June to 8 July and General Availability on 10 July.

And commencing 31 March is the Sunrise for .ink for the tattoo and ink related industries. Sunrise closes on 2 June, then a Landrish from 5 to 19 June followed by General Availability on 23 June.

.XYZ Sunrise Launches 20 March

Dot XYZ logoIt’s one of the more generic of the generic TLDs to launch. So it will be interesting to see how successful it is when General Availability commences. For now though .xyz is launching into a 60 day end-date Sunrise on 20 March and is inviting brands registered with the TMCH to exclusively register their trademarks before General Availability

Dot XYZ logoIt’s one of the more generic of the generic TLDs to launch. So it will be interesting to see how successful it is when General Availability commences. For now though .xyz is launching into a 60 day end-date Sunrise on 20 March and is inviting brands registered with the TMCH to exclusively register their trademarks before General Availability.

CentralNic is backing the gTLD’s launch with a multi-million dollar ad campaign and proactive marketing that is hoped will drive high-volume registrations.

The gTLD is being marketed as a mass-market, affordable and completely unrestricted and CentralNic is expecting over one million domain name registrations expected in the first year.

Suggestions for use of .xyz domain names are as corporate websites, new product pages, micro and promotional sites, recruiting portals and other business support services.

Priority registration will be given to Trademark Holders during the 10 day Landrush following Sunrise to secure related names and variations for a one time application fee.

CentralNic Launching .MEX.COM As Mexican Alternative

CentralNic logoNew gTLDs are on the horizon, but CentralNic is pushing its second level domains with the general availability for .mex.com commencing on 20 January

CentralNic logoNew gTLDs are on the horizon, but CentralNic is pushing its second level domains with the general availability for .mex.com commencing on 20 January.

The launch of .mex.com means there are now around 30 second level domains offered by CentralNic including .us.com, .uk.com, .com.de and .jp.net.

The 2LD is restriction free and is aimed at providing an alternative to .mx and access to Mexico’s 46 million internet users.

Give your customers the heads up now by enticing them with these great names (and the marketing materials on your registrar console). It’s first come, first served, so make sure you notify them in advance of the launch to give them every chance of securing the name they want under .MEX.COM.