new gtlds GoDaddy to drop support for all Uniregistry strings (permanently)

[GeorgeK]

According to @DomainNameWire:

Schilling informed me that GoDaddy will stop offering Uniregistry top level domain names. This isn’t the first time GoDaddy has dropped Uniregistry names, but it seems they now have put a permanent transition in place.

GoDaddy stopped offering new registrations of Uniregistry TLDs in March due to Uniregistry’s planned price hikes, but then added them back in with high prices. While new registrations are available as of today, this will soon be switched off.

http://domainnamewire.com/2017/08/18/godaddy-drops-uniregistry/

@Uniregistry (aka "Punyregistry") new gTLDs will no longer be supported by GoDaddy.

 

[Acroplex]

The bigger the ship the longer it takes to turn. When you work with companies this size you learn quickly that staying nimble at scale is one of the biggest challenges they face. Very often companies this size have their development funnel fully set for the upcoming 12-18 months, so assuming that large companies can make changes within 6 months isn't credible at all.

Since the days that I churned code non stop, development cycles have changed. Rapid cycles are the norm for the past decade plus, or you won't make it in this app-driven world. To say that it'd take a full year for a task of this kind, is absurd. I do take GD's size into account, and given the financial prowess and talent they can utilize with it, I'm calling the lack of execution an executive, strategic decision. "Customer confusion" is the least tangible reason IMO.

 

[Brandworthy]

To say that it'd take a full year for a task of this kind, is absurd.

I never said that. I said that big companies don't usually leave their dev resources sitting around waiting for a project like this to come along. It's a simple matter of priorities - I'm sure they could do this if whey absolutely needed to by shuffling resources, but who are we to assume what their business priorities are? How can we possible presume to know that the lack of implementation is purely a competitive response? Right now they have an auctions platform that barely works on mobile devices. Their Afternic platform has the most offensive frontend imaginable, and the backend has had some serious security issues. They have retired major iOS and Android apps with no replacements. I imagine their development pipeline is fairly full of projects that have better prospects than support over-priced new gTLDs, but as I mentioned - who knows?

 

[Acroplex]

Unwillingness/incompetence are both plausible scenarios. One has to be enthusiastic about something, and if the core relationship won't sustain that, it becomes an unnecessary chore. But is this truly for the consumer's benefit as claimed?

My criticism of GoDaddy is on this incident alone. I've used them since 2000 and still have domains there. Despite what some want to believe, I'm objective - yet brutally honest, when things don't work as expected.

 

[Name Trader]

I agree with @Acroplex that "customer confusion" seems the least likely of all the possible scenarios there might be for dropping all Uniregistry GTLDs. In fact I'd go as far as to say that GoDaddy have inflicted much of this "customer confusion" themselves with the way they have handled these price increases themselves. It seems more like "management confusion". I think GD should come clean and tell us exactly why they are taking their actions against Uniregistry. But don't hold your breath.

Uniregistry were perfectly entitled to handle the increases as they have done, under their ICANN agreement. Their biggest problem seems to be that they have a whole bunch of unviable GTLDs to begin with. Even those customers with grandfathered prices will eventually be screwed, when their GTLD still is unviable selling domains at these new prices. Eventually they will be asked to pay these higher prices sometime down the road, either by Uniregistry, or whoever they persuade to take over the GTLD (which nobody in their right mind wants to buy a toxic GTLD). Or the GTLD will simply fail. If I owned a grandfathered domain, I'd be looking for an alternative, to protect my long-term business interests.

GoDaddy et al, are also perfectly entitled to sell whatever GTLD's they feel comfortable selling. The two tiered pricing might be simple or complex to implement. I'm sure GoDaddy could have easily implemented this pricing structure within the given time-frame. If they had wanted to. But I suspect they took the decision not to implement the two-tiered pricing structure as an excuse to cut the umbilical chord of selling a set of failing GTLDs.

GoDaddy pride themselves for selling domains at affordable prices to endusers. I don't think selling domains at Uniregistry prices could be called affordable prices. I completely understand and agree with the decision they have made about this. Uniregistry are trying to sell (mostly) third rate GTLDs at (mostly) super-premium prices. This strategy will fail. IMHO.

Frank will inherit whatever premium domains get dropped. It's a win-win situation for both of them

 

[Acroplex]

@stub gave a very well-balanced analysis. It shows that even large companies such as GoDaddy throw "tantrums" and severe ties when feeling threatened by even smaller competitors.

 

[equity78]

I am wondering, do their system even handle differential pricing seamlessly ?
I am not sure there is a gargantuan budget for IT, in fact I suspect that the backend is quite old, and bloated like everything at GoDaddy, and that only the UI gets some cosmetic work from time to time. Software seldom ages well, because you never rewrite it from scratch. Instead, you keep adding new 'features' and additional layers and appendices, and you end up with an unstable pile of dung. But adding new features come at a cost because of the growing complexity and instability (technical debt). Speaking from experience here
If this depicts the situation at Godaddy, then they will predictably not want to carry low-volume extensions that require 'customization' because there isn't enough enough volume to make it worthwhile.

And keep in mind they are the biggest registrar with tens of millions of domains under management today. IT systems do not always scale up gracefully.
This could be one reason, of course no company likes to admit that their 20-year old backend is buggy, inadequate, outdated and inflexible.

Spot on.

 

[Kate]

One thing that we know, is that Godaddy has been acting in bad faith on the occasion.
For example, years ago they were advising against .tv because the island is 'sinking', at the same time they were pimping .me while the host country doesn't have an established history of stability.

However, I think they might seriously dislike the differential pricing which is a PR headache, because registrants never deal with the registry direct, it's always the registrar that will have to deal with complaints about price hikes etc.

Since there are no price caps, grandfathered pricing is not a right but a 'favor' that could be revoked in the future. If registrants knew they enjoy zero protection, then they would shun nTLDs even more. In my view, the lack of predictable, regulated pricing is reason enough to avoid nTLDs.
And maybe Godaddy is seeing the writing on the wall: many of those strings are not viable.

 

[Acroplex]

The strings might or might no be viable in the next 20 years. Nobody knows. But GoDaddy's role in this exchange is simply the retailer, not the manufacturer. They don't hold inventory, they sell - and greatly upsell - products other Registries "create." So no, this decision was a tantrum and an indication of how GoDaddy operates at the corporate level as well.

 

[Name Trader]

@Acroplex - I wouldn't exactly call it a tantrum. As I explained above, it could have been a well thought out, or a not so well thought out, corporate strategy.

@Kate - It is true, that all these nGTLDs can increase their prices overnight (well over 6 months) to whatever they see fit to charge, and could even grandfather in all currently registered domains. A PR disaster, if they don't. It's a risk, that probably very few registrants even thought about at the time of registration. Their only safeguard is the track-record of each nGTLD. Which none of them currently have a sufficiently long track record.

The only possibility is Verisign, who owns .com, if they were to assign a similar operation to .web. The problem is that they (would say, they) have been hampered by the contract they had to sign to get .com (which many say is already too generous to Verisign). It's still a wait 'n see situation until .web overcomes all the litigation and eventually comes out. But without a clear statement from Verisign, there would be no good reason to trust that the same couldn't happen to .web. All these nGTLDs are a minefield of uncertainty. For which I blame ICANN. For a non-profit organization, they have certainly chased the almighty dollar. IMHO, they should be disbanded and replaced with a true non-profit organization. But realistically, that will never happen. But maybe all these nGTLDs could be managed by some other (non-profit) organization (but I'm getting off topic).

I'd rather stick with a regulated market model, such as the original GTLDs and ccGTLDs. Much easier to plan your future. Which is a necessity for businesses. Choose your nGTLD wisely.

 

[gpmgroup]

ICANN will just say you don't have to buy them if you don't want to... If enough people don't buy them then the registries will either have to drop their prices or go out of business.

 

[Name Trader]

ICANN will just say you don't have to buy them if you don't want to... If enough people don't buy them then the registries will either have to drop their prices or go out of business.

Or in Uniregistry's case jack up the prices, which would possibly be an interim step before going out of business. I'm noit blaming Uniregistry. They are trying to make their businesses viable.

 

[gpmgroup]

Or in Uniregistry's case jack up the prices, which would possibly be an interim step before going out of business. I'm noit blaming Uniregistry. They are trying to make their businesses viable.

With grandfathering and an inability to sell enough names at the existing lower price model it is difficult to see why any additional money will flow in to solve Uniregistry's claimed problem. Rather than grandfathering names it would seem to have been more logical to sell or close the the problem gTLDs if they were really so unprofitable to require such massive price rises.

 

[Kate]

The only possibility is Verisign, who owns .com, if they were to assign a similar operation to .web. The problem is that they (would say, they) have been hampered by the contract they had to sign to get .com (which many say is already too generous to Verisign). It's still a wait 'n see situation until .web overcomes all the litigation and eventually comes out. But without a clear statement from Verisign, there would be no good reason to trust that the same couldn't happen to .web.

The .com contract is indeed generous but it is regulated, at least price hikes are contained and predictable. But in a real competitive situation registrants could be paying less. For example if Denic were taking over the .com registry.

ICANN will just say you don't have to buy them if you don't want to... If enough people don't buy them then the registries will either have to drop their prices or go out of business.

Unfortunately there is no easy way out. Even at cheap prices there is no demand anyway. If you give them away like .xyz they will attract spammers. Even 6 million .xyz at 1 penny each is not a lot of money. It's not a profitable strategy in the long term, especially if you have to deal with a surge of abuse.

If these strings are not viable then they will increase prices and squeeze them as much as they can, and retire them at some point. This will happen, TLDs don't have to be maintained for eternity but 3 years.
Once again Icann is at fault for approving too many TLDs with no valid business model, at the expense of registrants.
No registrar want to be in the position of telling customers "Sorry your extension is being sunsetted"

 

[GeorgeK]

There are so many weak new gTLDs at the moment, but it seems no one wants to be the first one to shut down (and use the EBERO mechanism). It'll be interesting to see if there's a domino effect once the first new gTLD registry operator capitulates.

 

[-EM-]

Dropping those TLDs was the easiest way for registrars to deal with the problem. It doesn't matter what do they blame, all it matters for them is profit and market dominance. Selling those TLDs was not compatible with their strategy, that's all.

 

[GoKaizen]

Remember?

https://www.namepros.com/threads/centralnic-sunsetting-several-sld-extensions.943329/

No registrar want to be in the position of telling customers "Sorry your extension is being sunsetted"

There would definitely be a domino effect George.

There are so many weak new gTLDs at the moment, but it seems no one wants to be the first one to shut down (and use the EBERO mechanism). It'll be interesting to see if there's a domino effect once the first new gTLD registry operator capitulates.

 

[GeorgeK]

Remember?
https://www.namepros.com/threads/centralnic-sunsetting-several-sld-extensions.943329/

Yes, although those weren't ICANN-regulated gTLDs. CentralNic was just selling 3rd level domains, as subdomains of 2-letter .coms.

 

[GoKaizen]

Yes, but an example of how companies will shutter an underperforming TLD.

Many were Dead On Arrival.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/list-of-retired-new-extensions.991424/

Yes, although those weren't ICANN-regulated gTLDs. CentralNic was just selling 3rd level domains, as subdomains of 2-letter .coms.

 

[Name Trader]

With grandfathering and an inability to sell enough names at the existing lower price model it is difficult to see why any additional money will flow in to solve Uniregistry's claimed problem. Rather than grandfathering names it would seem to have been more logical to sell or close the the problem gTLDs if they were really so unprofitable to require such massive price rises.

I agree. But I don't blame Uniregistry to try to fix the problem first. Personally. I don't think their fix will work. But that's just me. I presume they had a panel of people go thru varying scenarios and came up with this idea. Try that first

 

[kjngwjtch]

I have been using Godaddy's domain for a long time and am very satisfied with their service and work attitude Godaddy's domain for a long time and am very satisfied with their service and work attitude.