new gtlds 16 new TLDs will get price increases of up to 3,000%

[Shimmy]

Uniregistry is to massively increase the price of some of its under-performing new gTLDs in an effort to keep them afloat.

Sixteen TLDs from the company’s portfolio of 27 will see price increases of up to 3,000% starting September 8, CEO Frank Schilling confirmed to DI today.

Link to article:
http://domainincite.com/21603-schilling-big-price-increases-needed-to-keep-new-gtlds-alive

 

[GeorgeK]

As I noted on DomainIncite, if you go to the .AUDIO new gTLD application:

https://gtldresult.icann.org/applicationstatus/applicationdetails/1908

(click on “Download Public Portion of Application”) it says:

18.C.2 Cost Structure and Increases

Uniregistry will offer flat-rate, affordable pricing. It intends to offer certain co-marketing rebates and incentives to all registrars, some of which may be returned to registrants as introductory or bulk registration discounts at the discretion of the registrar.

While not a ʺcommunityʺ application, Uniregistry views its prospective domain registrants as a community to be served, and not exploited. Uniregistry intends to make a contractual commitment to registrants and their registrars not to increase registry prices above cost of inflation for the first five years after launch of the registry. Our initial pricing model allows registry prices to find a market value that may be substantially below our projections, which are based on conservative assumptions of registration volume, rather than locking in a captive market with a deceptively low initial registration cost.

Uniregistry does not believe that registry fees should rise when the costs of other technology services have uniformly trended downward, simply because a registry operator believes it can extract higher profit from its base of registrants. While competition in registrar services by ICANN caused an initial and substantial drop in retail domain registration prices, the fees for registry services have increased over the same span of time. Those increases have not been justified by increased Internet traffic, and thus zone server operational cost, since the cost the underlying technology has trended down while performance has increased. We do not believe registry fees should follow a different trend than comparable technological services. Uniregistryʹs management includes individuals who participated in anti-trust litigation which was brought to combat increases in existing TLD registry charges they believed to be unjustified, and we have no intention of following that path. We believe our best opportunity for prosperity is to offer a reliable, differentiated TLD which will attract increasing numbers of registrants.

(emphasis added)

Has it been 5 years already since launch? Doesn’t look like it! .audio appears to have launched in the summer of 2014.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to check his other new gTLD applications to ICANN.

Similar statements were made on blogs, e.g.

http://tldinvestors.com/2012/07/uniregistry-has-no-plans-for-premium-auctions.html

Our prices are fixed and only indexed to inflation after 5 years.

It’s so sad for those who relied on those commitments, and are now about to see their investments flushed down the toilet.

Folks like myself strongly argued for pricing caps, etc. to protect registrants. ICANN wasn’t listening, but was too busy on travel junkets, and hiring ‘consultants’ to justify pay increases, etc.

 

[bmugford]

Game Over. New gTLD investors were warned this would happen.
Expect it to happen across the board now.

Bullshit and hype only takes you so far. At some point basic economics like supply & demand win.

Brad

 

[.NJ]

 

[alcy]

finally someone is taking some concerte measures to kill what should have never been born to begin with.

 

[bmugford]

 

[Kate]

Domainers can't say they weren't warned, and they should know better. The real losers are the small end users and the hobbyists who will have to jump ship and move to more affordable and preferably, regulated domain extensions.

Since these are unpopular extensions, the damage in terms of affected parties should be limited. But it's bad publicity. New extensions are going to look even more shady when the 'evictees' start blogging out and loud about their experience.

I will say it again, it's almost as if nGTLD registries were working for us .com holders

 

[GeorgeK]

The best part of the quote in my earlier comment is below the "click to expand". Let me repost that brief section here instead, in case folks missed it:

Uniregistry views its prospective domain registrants as a community to be served, and not exploited. Uniregistry intends to make a contractual commitment to registrants and their registrars not to increase registry prices above cost of inflation for the first five years after launch of the registry.

(emphasis added)

 

[GeorgeK]

So are get.club domain capped ,you could be paying and then bang once you paid up ?
.Club how do you feel about this ?

property $25 to $100 count me out!

None of the new gTLDs have pricing caps in place. This was pointed out repeatedly, but ICANN ignored the public input that would have protected domain name registrants.

 

[Traveler]

is there a list of the affected names?

This is a summary from the article:

.hosting (increase to $300/year from $20)
.juegos (increase to $300/year from $10)
.click ($1 to $2 increase per year)
.link ($1 to $2 increase per year)
.audio (increase to around $100/year from $10 to $25 range)
.blackfriday (increase to around $100/year from $10 to $25 range)
.diet (increase to around $100/year from $10 to $25 range)
.flowers (increase to around $100/year from $10 to $25 range)
.hiphop (increase to around $100/year from $10 to $25 range)
.guitars (increase to around $100/year from $10 to $25 range)
.property (increase to around $100/year from $10 to $25 range)
.christmas (will increase but stay in the sub-$100 range)
.help (will increase but stay in the sub-$100 range)
.sexy (will increase but stay in the sub-$100 range)
.tattoo (will increase but stay in the sub-$100 range)

The article mentions sixteen names, but I only see 15 mentioned with the prices increases. I may have missed one.

 

[has2hands]

I feel bad for the undercapitalized domain investors.

This is real sucker punch for the newer domainers who specialize in these names.

 

[hullswingerscom]

feel sorry for people and small business what have built website on there names

 

[GeorgeK]

Given the massive expected domain name deletions, Uniregistry shall henceforth be referred to as Punyregistry.

 

[GeorgeK]

As someone who has invested in the new gtlds , I can say his prices increases won't affect me even 100.00 a year ... I don't own but very few of the strings being affected ... A few .link that's all.

I don't think it affects my portfolio of names mostly donuts .

You might believe that right now. But, let's suppose you intend to sell some of your domain names (if your business model is to resell, as opposed to being an end-user), rather than just hold them. The market value of your domains has been significantly affected, because now buyers will know that their total cost of ownership (initial price plus renewals) not only is uncertain, but has a chance of being astronomically high. Let's consider an equation from a buyer's point of view:

Total Cost of Ownership = Initial Price + Net Present Value of Future Renewals

To maintain a given total cost of ownership, if the expected "Net Present Value of Future Renewals" goes up, then the "Initial Price" must go down!

In many cases, the Net Present Value of Future Renewals will be so high that the Initial Price would have to be NEGATIVE! (i.e. the investor who is selling the domain name is essentially wiped out, and can't even give it away)

New gTLDs were always toxic. Punyregistry just made it clear to some exactly why, knowledge that more experienced domain name owners knew long ago (and thus shunned those TLDs, even at 1 cent or free). Go back to the ICANN comment periods years ago, and you'll see this. Frank Schilling himself was against such behaviour by registry operators, if it would affect his own domain names in .com/net/org, etc. That's why he plows his own money into .com (via expired domain name auctions).

The Punyregistry news hasn't reached the mainstream/traditional media yet, but it will as registrars slowly inform their customer base of the price changes. Some registry operators are already trying to distance themselves, but why should you trust them not to do the same thing? Empty words should be heavily discounted. Binding price caps by ICANN, which registry operators fought against, are the only solution.

 

[GeorgeK]

For those who are critical of Frank Schilling and have domain names registered at Punyregistry, take a hard look at section 2.15 of their registration agreement.

https://uniregistry.com/legal/registration-agreement

2.15 Revocation

We, in our sole discretion, reserve the right to deny, cancel, suspend, transfer or modify any domain name registration to correct a mistake, protect the integrity and stability of our operations and of any applicable registry, to comply with any applicable laws, government rules, or requirements, requests of law enforcement, in compliance with any dispute resolution process, to address fraudulent payments or identity theft, to avoid any liability, civil or criminal or in response to abusive, threatening or harassing communications directed to us or any of our employees or agents in the scope of their employment. You agree that we shall not be liable to you for loss or damages that may result from our refusal to register or cancel, suspend, transfer or modify your domain name registration under this section."

(emphasis added) So, my reading of this is that, if in their "sole discretion" they don't like what you're saying about them, and deem it "harassing", they reserve the right to cancel your domain, and you agreed that they shall not be liable for that decision.

 

[GeorgeK]

That would not happen actually (especially without a notification then you have a chance to renew it for 10 years) as it is not a premium domain or keyword.

While there are ICANN rules requiring registry operators to notify registrars of the price increases, there's no such rule requiring registrars to give advance warnings to registrants. Consider this: how many registrars have sent out notices to their customers yet? (or are they simply finding out on their own, via blogs?) Beyond simply changing the price on their website when the time comes, some registrars might not do anything else, thereby screwing the registrants who have auto-renew enabled.

 

[betthelot]

Y

I'm starting to finally see a decent amount of gTLD domains used in advertising ... When the ship tries to leave the port they're giving it a "good luck" torpedo?

Thankfully those aren't the most interesting gTLDs, as long as the others don't follow this example

You don't understand the cat has been let out the bag. These nGTLDs are able to screw you at any time and by any means of their choosing. Their are no price controls or caps, it's the Wild West. Where as dot Com is restricted at inflation increases unlike these names. This is now in the public domain, it's a game changer.

 

[nomen]

What amazes me the most is why domaining super star FS applied for such bad strings in the first place. .SEXY, .HIPHOP, .CHRISTMAS, .BLACKFRIDAY, .GUITARS. What.

 

[Fancy.domains]

Personally, I will drop all my Uniregistry names and transfer out all other names from them. I have had a few issues with them before and just do not trust 'em.

 

[Silentptnr]

The evolution of the domain name market and specifically ngTLD's will be interesting.

All in all, we have to anticipate changes. Large numbers of speculative registrations have fueled the existence and growth of businesses like Uniregistry. These speculative registrations were mostly because of cheap prices. Once those cheap prices go away, the speculators will go away.

Ultimately, the strong will survive. In my opinion, many domainers have unknowingly been a part of a large pump and dump. Maybe we call it buy low, sell high, but the reality is pump and dump. That formula always leaves someone holding a big bag of air.

Personally, I like some ngTLD's. Approximately 10% of my domains are ngTLD's. I have another 20% in ccTLD's and the rest in .com. I will have no problem dropping or giving away domains that don't work in my business model.

Best of luck to Frank and Uniregistry. This business is not easy. My only advice to you is stay out of the domaining business. Lose the premium pricing and establish a pricing structure that is balanced and fair.
The market will decide the value of your products.

 

[bmugford]

The best part of the quote in my earlier comment is below the "click to expand". Let me repost that brief section here instead, in case folks missed it:
(emphasis added)

"Intends". LOL

Anyone who thinks FS is a champion for the domain community should think again.

Brad

 

[GeorgeK]

"Because the new prices don’t kick in until September, registrants are able to lock in pricing at current levels by renewing for up to 10 years."

The registry just told you "don't trust us to keep renewal costs low." Anyone who then locks in for 10 years is nuts to keep investing in a string from that registry operator. It's throwing good many after bad.

 

[dordomai]

I think the most important part of the article is where Schilling said he prefers the pricing model of a flat $2,888 per year for every domain like he did with .cars, .car and .auto

There is a chance that is where the pricing is going for all his domains. He can do 3,000% increases year after year

i think for some extensions with low reg numbers this could well be the future.

A lot of money is made from protective regs. Large TM holders like Amazon for example don't mind paying 6 figures a month to protect their mark and once they register a domain they will keep renewing it forever.

with just 1000 regs you can make a cool $3 million a year

This model could well be the future for some extensions. It's actually pretty good, like a license to print money forever, selling domains that no one ever uses, selling to corporations with so much money that they don't care.

If the entire registry gets just 3k regs from TM holders @ 3k/year each that would be $9 million/year.

it is also more stable income than depending on domainers that need to be kept hopeful and entertained to keep paying for renewals.

https://gwhois.org/bing.cars+dns
https://gwhois.org/microsoft.cars+dns
https://gwhois.org/mazda.cars+dns
https://gwhois.org/microsoft.christmas+dns

 

[dordomai]

Yes, it would be disappointing to start your business on an $12 a year extension and see it rise to say $100 a year, but if you are a business, that is not going to be the reason you fold up shop!

exactly. that is why Frank is doing that. if that works out well, they will be $200 and if that is tolerated it will be $300 etc. etc

once greed takes over it can not be stopped. They will just maximise their gains and find the sweet spot which will be the maximum short-term gain.

 

[Doron Vermaat]

Damn, there goes my development plan for Doron.sexy