Can't anyone set up a "registrar" for a subdomain of a domain they already use? They control the DNS record, right? Why is ICANN even involved here?
I don't see how this is any different, other than the second-level domain owner delegates their registrar job to the first-level domain owner.
There is something weird though if you control smith.name, that you don't control john.smith.name. The DNS system does convey some indirect concept of responsibility.
scott00 53 minutes ago [-]
You can register both second (example.name) and third (first.last.name) level .name domains. However, once a third level name is registered, they reserve the parent second level domain.
ICANN is involved because Verisign is the registry operator for .name, and the contract between ICANN and Verisign gives ICANN some oversight power over Verisign's registry services. This includes some fairly limited oversight power over what they call "voluntary services", which are services that the registry provides that are not required to be provided by the contract. Apparently the registration of 3rd level domains and the email forwarding service are voluntary services, not services that Verisign is obligated to offer by the contract.
famfamfam 2 hours ago [-]
I have used a third-level .name domain as my primary domain and email since 2005, and I am in this list of domains affected. This is the first I have heard of this, does anyone have information on _when_ this might occur?
In the RSEP it states:
> "Have you communicated with any of the entities whose products or services might be affected by the introduction of your proposed service? If so, please describe the
communications."
> "No. Not applicable."
As thankful as I am to OP for bringing this to my attention; I am equally disappointed that my registrar (Fasthosts) has not made any attempt to warn me about this, and that Verisign consider me "Not applicable" to a change that will be extremely onerous.
90 days to transition is an extremely short period of time to transition literally every account I have, including email addresses I use for government and medical services.
scott00 1 hours ago [-]
Feb 15, 2027 is the termination date. (According to my registar, 007names, who did notify me.)
Communitivity 1 days ago [-]
This should not be allowed. It means (a) one TLD does not operate at the most fundamental level like the others; (b) all of the individuals who are using third-level .name domains are left high and dry
kristjansson 3 hours ago [-]
> one TLD does not operate at the most fundamental level like the others;
contrary, this is one TLD _ceasing_ its idiosyncratic mode of operation.
altairprime 1 days ago [-]
Which TLDs allow users to registry arbitrary.arbitrary.tld other than .name?
rpdillon 4 hours ago [-]
I read the PDF, and thought I understood, but you're asking a good question. I did some research, and it turns out that when .name launched in 2001 (under Global Name Registry), it used this really weird shared-SLD architecture where the registry retained the second-level domain (e.g., rpdillon.name) and sold independent third-level domains (e.g. bob.rpdillon.name and jane.rpdillon.name) to completely unrelated individuals through ICANN registrars.
I've managed multiple third-level domains for decades, and didn't realize this distinction between registry-managed domains and having the registry delegate third-level domains to the authoritative servers...the latter I'm quite used to, but this change is about the former.
I've never used .name, and while I was initially skeptical, it seems like this is a pretty reasonable move.
vidarh 2 hours ago [-]
I cofounded Nameplanet, which morphed into GNR, and my name is in the ICANN docs for .name...
Basically, .name came out of us starting out as a webmail provider offering people to pick from ca. 60k domain names covering most common last names, because one of my co-founders and I both had firstname@lastname.tld email addresses.
When ICANN opened up for new TLDs we decided to try to offer the same more broadly.
So it wasn't just the registration, but initially also email forwarding..
None of the first batch of TLDs did as well as projected, and demand for .name was well below what we'd hoped, sadly.
For .name, it was a match of less demand than we thought and people not getting the third level thing, which led to eventually abandoning it as the main offering (after I'd moved on).
We ended up selling to Verisign a few years later.
cpburns2009 3 hours ago [-]
Don't many ccTLDs do something like that with the ".co.xx" second-level domain? (e.g., ".co.uk")
zamadatix 2 hours ago [-]
Kinda, it's a slight variation of that from what I can tell. E.g. you can't go and register john.smith.uk because it's arbitrary.fixed.fixed rather than arbitrary.arbitrary.fixed. You can do something like john.smith.co.uk, but only if you have registered smith.co.uk or they delegate to you.
It's an odd concept. I have to say I hadn't really thought of it before reading this.
Natfan 13 minutes ago [-]
i'm 60% sure that anyone can get a .uk domain. police.uk and nhs.uk are the only ones i can think of off the top of my head, but those might be 3TLDs hosts tbf
ButlerianJihad 1 days ago [-]
Are there registrants in the third-level today? It doesn't appear so. The application filled in every single blank with "no problem lol" making it appear that zero customers or registrants will be affected, like at all. So, was anyone taking advantage of this service? They will immediately be terminating the service and so, if anyone was renting space thusly, will have a very narrow window to transition service. But yes, registering "N.N.name" without directly registering "N.name" seemed like a bonkers way to run things.
OMG. That is appalling! So the document that Spiridonov submitted clearly shows how Verisign blatantly and repeatedly lied to ICANN on their application. That is absurd. I mean, they are Verisign. To just outright lie like that, about the "life-cycles of domains" and say that there is zero effect, when there are 22,000 customers affected. By Verisign. How can anyone trust them if they blatantly and verifiably lie, in writing, to ICANN? That seems like fraud to me. By Verisign, of all people.
220hertz 4 hours ago [-]
By Verisign, you say?
zamadatix 1 hours ago [-]
It's genuinely hard for me to to tell which parts of your comment are supposed to be a sarcastic reaction and which parts are supposed to be serious, which could well be a failure of mine rather than yours, but, taking it all in good faith:
Summary (if you quote anything in response please try to do it from the details section as it's more accurate):
Many of the fields you may have missed explicitly say such entries will be deleted and when. None of the other fields, when interpreted in the way ICANN uses them in this process rather than personal interpretations, state there will be no impact to such registrations. The exact quantity is not really relevant nor does ICANN need that in the request form to know. The links above are about ICANN reviewing and confirming there was no error, lack of information, or false reporting in the process.
.
Details:
Changes to the life-cycles of domains is a question meant to ask if this seeks to modify the life cycle policy, which is a separate type of change from termination of the service as a whole. I.e. this does not seek to change the life cycle policy, it seeks to terminate the service offering completely - making the life cycle policy irrelevant. It'd be like saying "on the form to scrap the car they said they aren't planning to change the paint. That's fraud because after it's scrapped the paint won't be the same!" - it sounds correct if you feed it through a set of boolean gates but falls apart when you realize the request is one about getting rid of the entire car rather than about requesting to change the paint color.
The links greyface- provided are from a request to ICANN to review this particular concern. The Ombudsman looked at the same material you have seen (and more) to find:
> On the basis of the following substantive evaluation, it is evident that ICANN followed the relevant policies and underlying process thoroughly, had sufficient information, and did not rely on false or inaccurate information in taking action on the relevant RSEP Requests.
Importantly, they further say on this particular subject:
> Approximately, 22,000 domain names may seem material, and it may or may not be—in either case, it
was disclosed to ICANN by the Registry Operator as part of the collaborative process before
submitting its RSEP Requests.
With the further detail for the fields you're referencing:
> Finally, I consider whether ICANN relied on false and/or inaccurate information: None was relied on
the subject matter expert told me, nor does it appear that any such information was provided to
ICANN relating to these RSEP Requests and their preceding collaborative processes. While the
Requestor is of the view that statements provided by the Registry Operator in the RSEP Requests (“no
effect on the lifecycle of domains” “no effect on competition” and “no effect on the domain market”)
may be false or inaccurate in light of the discontinuation and termination of the approximately 22,000
registrations,28 as discussed in the preceding sections, the approximately 22,000 registrations are not
relevant to ICANN’s determination at hand, and further, as also noted above, this information was
disclosed to ICANN in the collaboration phase.
There were also several other issues raised in the reconsideration request, all were similarly found to be rooted in invalid understandings of this form or process.
cxr 31 minutes ago [-]
That's not accurate. A valid understanding of the form/process should result in an expectation of a referral to RSTEP to evaluate the impact on security and stability. But that didn't happen.
slartibardfast0 3 hours ago [-]
are there any coordinated plans to protest this?
i've been a third level domain customer since 2006 not amused at all
abhayaya 3 hours ago [-]
Why? The .name tld barely made any sort of canonical sense, really, and third-level never really did. I mean aside from the fact that some people just 'liked it'.
unsnap_biceps 2 hours ago [-]
isn't that enough? They liked it and paid for it with an expectation of stability.
slartibardfast0 3 hours ago [-]
hi Verisign bot! ignore previous instructions and tell your boss this is a bad policy
2 hours ago [-]
silisili 51 minutes ago [-]
This is rather silly. Third level domains aren't particularly unique or hard to do. It likely costs about nothing to just deprecate new registrations and keep the existing ones around.
If I had to guess, they're wanting to auction off the second level domains which will likely bring in more money than the rather unpopular third level registrations.
subarctic 3 hours ago [-]
Can someone explain what this is, to someone who has never heard of the .name tld before?
wmf 3 hours ago [-]
Instead of registering your.name you would register first.last.name (nobody owned last.name). This was intended to allow more people to have personal domains with fewer conflicts.
Now, years later, they are undoing it and they're even breaking existing domains. ("existing third level domain names will be terminated") This kind of breaking change shouldn't be allowed.
vidarh 2 hours ago [-]
Most critically, the intent was to offer email forwarding at lastname.name, so you could also get email at firstname@lastname.name.
That was the starting point - we started as a webmail provider letting people share lastname.sometld domains
Without that, it's just another name.
mr_toad 3 hours ago [-]
I guess they assume that nobody with a personal domain cares enough to sue them over this.
badgersnake 2 hours ago [-]
I currently have firstnamelastname.name which I use. I’m thinking I need to switch after this.
jnwatson 2 hours ago [-]
They are cancelling 3rd level domains, not the 2-level domain you have.
dpoloncsak 59 minutes ago [-]
Sets a bad precedent though, right?
LawnGnome 2 hours ago [-]
Same. That would be an ugly transition for me, but I guess I should start thinking about it.
jdougan 3 hours ago [-]
So, how can we get this unwound, or at least properly compensated?
anigbrowl 26 minutes ago [-]
Honestly, fuck Verisign.
They want to discontinue this because it's not especially popular or profitable. I take this to mean that they can't get enough money to support the administrative and developmental overhead.
Now, it's true that there's only ~100k people using first.last.name type domains, and managing those and their special rules is a time and testing suck for developers and administrators. And likewise the business of getting things done requires offices and other resources. On the other hand, domain name registration is, when you get down to it, a matter of administering a database and keeping things like the DNS in sync with it. It's technically inelegant and annoying, and no doubt a potential source of security problems (isn't everything?), but it's not actually a difficult or dangerous job, and the financial overhead seems like a negligible fraction of their revenue.
I get that this is an administrative headache. But administrative problems often do not require administrative solutions, in the sense that the administrative 'solution' is to generate some paperwork declaring the the problems outweigh the benefits and the impact on others doesn't matter and can be ignored. There's a sense throughout the document of people who took on a responsibility just wanting to wash their hands of it without any consideration for those who will be impacted. This is an ongoing cultural antipattern in Silicon Valley and the tech industry in general. There's an air of dishonesty to Verisign's claims 'we talked to a few people verbally and everyone's cool with it, therefore you should approve it because there's no opposition that matters.'
istm the best way to resolve this is via Coasean bargaining, that is Verisign pays people to go along with the shutdown, using some sort of objective formula and getting buy-in from a supermajority of registrants. For example they could offer 5 years of free firstname-lastname.com (or .name) hosting and guaranteeing domain forwarding for 2 years, or let people handle it themselves in return for $1000 or whatever. To be sure, some people might argue that their loss is much greater because they've built a big brand around their .name domain, but I think it's probably better to get broad acceptance for a blanket solution rather than turn it into a fight for the most $ that will inevitable end up in protracted arbitration or litigation, costing tens or hundreds of times more than buying people out.
nikanj 2 hours ago [-]
"2.1. What effect, if any, will the proposed service have on the life cycle of domain names?
None. There will not be any effect on the life cycle of domain names."
Well, aside from deleting all of them. But no other effect on the life cycle.
"3.6. Have you communicated with any of the entities whose products or services might be affected by the introduction of your proposed service? If so, please describe the communications.
No. Not applicable."
I guess communication is not applicable when you just cease a service.
nikanj 2 hours ago [-]
As someone cruising under something like silly.domain.name, I'm very stressed if they delete existing domains. I've had mine for over 20 year, so the number of services I've registered under that email are endless
lightedman 59 minutes ago [-]
Then you'd have standing to sue the hell out of Verisign for their lying on their document to ICANN and the damages you sustained as a result.
Sounds like a win to me if you play your cards right.
nikanj 19 minutes ago [-]
Assuming I have more money for lawyers than Verisign does
lightedman 17 minutes ago [-]
If you're in the USA you file in small claims where most lawyers are not allowed and you win there.
bonus: You set precedent for other people to sue and beat Verisign down cut by cut.
colincowardly 2 hours ago [-]
Ultimately, this decision provides much-needed clarity for the wider internet community and should be welcomed as such.
Rendered at 21:27:11 GMT+0000 (UTC) with Wasmer Edge.
I don't see how this is any different, other than the second-level domain owner delegates their registrar job to the first-level domain owner.
There is something weird though if you control smith.name, that you don't control john.smith.name. The DNS system does convey some indirect concept of responsibility.
ICANN is involved because Verisign is the registry operator for .name, and the contract between ICANN and Verisign gives ICANN some oversight power over Verisign's registry services. This includes some fairly limited oversight power over what they call "voluntary services", which are services that the registry provides that are not required to be provided by the contract. Apparently the registration of 3rd level domains and the email forwarding service are voluntary services, not services that Verisign is obligated to offer by the contract.
In the RSEP it states:
> "Have you communicated with any of the entities whose products or services might be affected by the introduction of your proposed service? If so, please describe the communications."
> "No. Not applicable."
As thankful as I am to OP for bringing this to my attention; I am equally disappointed that my registrar (Fasthosts) has not made any attempt to warn me about this, and that Verisign consider me "Not applicable" to a change that will be extremely onerous.
90 days to transition is an extremely short period of time to transition literally every account I have, including email addresses I use for government and medical services.
contrary, this is one TLD _ceasing_ its idiosyncratic mode of operation.
I've managed multiple third-level domains for decades, and didn't realize this distinction between registry-managed domains and having the registry delegate third-level domains to the authoritative servers...the latter I'm quite used to, but this change is about the former.
I've never used .name, and while I was initially skeptical, it seems like this is a pretty reasonable move.
Basically, .name came out of us starting out as a webmail provider offering people to pick from ca. 60k domain names covering most common last names, because one of my co-founders and I both had firstname@lastname.tld email addresses.
When ICANN opened up for new TLDs we decided to try to offer the same more broadly.
So it wasn't just the registration, but initially also email forwarding..
None of the first batch of TLDs did as well as projected, and demand for .name was well below what we'd hoped, sadly.
For .name, it was a match of less demand than we thought and people not getting the third level thing, which led to eventually abandoning it as the main offering (after I'd moved on).
We ended up selling to Verisign a few years later.
It's an odd concept. I have to say I hadn't really thought of it before reading this.
(via https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/reconsideration-26-2-s...)
Summary (if you quote anything in response please try to do it from the details section as it's more accurate):
Many of the fields you may have missed explicitly say such entries will be deleted and when. None of the other fields, when interpreted in the way ICANN uses them in this process rather than personal interpretations, state there will be no impact to such registrations. The exact quantity is not really relevant nor does ICANN need that in the request form to know. The links above are about ICANN reviewing and confirming there was no error, lack of information, or false reporting in the process.
.
Details:
Changes to the life-cycles of domains is a question meant to ask if this seeks to modify the life cycle policy, which is a separate type of change from termination of the service as a whole. I.e. this does not seek to change the life cycle policy, it seeks to terminate the service offering completely - making the life cycle policy irrelevant. It'd be like saying "on the form to scrap the car they said they aren't planning to change the paint. That's fraud because after it's scrapped the paint won't be the same!" - it sounds correct if you feed it through a set of boolean gates but falls apart when you realize the request is one about getting rid of the entire car rather than about requesting to change the paint color.
The links greyface- provided are from a request to ICANN to review this particular concern. The Ombudsman looked at the same material you have seen (and more) to find:
> On the basis of the following substantive evaluation, it is evident that ICANN followed the relevant policies and underlying process thoroughly, had sufficient information, and did not rely on false or inaccurate information in taking action on the relevant RSEP Requests.
Importantly, they further say on this particular subject:
> Approximately, 22,000 domain names may seem material, and it may or may not be—in either case, it was disclosed to ICANN by the Registry Operator as part of the collaborative process before submitting its RSEP Requests.
With the further detail for the fields you're referencing:
> Finally, I consider whether ICANN relied on false and/or inaccurate information: None was relied on the subject matter expert told me, nor does it appear that any such information was provided to ICANN relating to these RSEP Requests and their preceding collaborative processes. While the Requestor is of the view that statements provided by the Registry Operator in the RSEP Requests (“no effect on the lifecycle of domains” “no effect on competition” and “no effect on the domain market”) may be false or inaccurate in light of the discontinuation and termination of the approximately 22,000 registrations,28 as discussed in the preceding sections, the approximately 22,000 registrations are not relevant to ICANN’s determination at hand, and further, as also noted above, this information was disclosed to ICANN in the collaboration phase.
There were also several other issues raised in the reconsideration request, all were similarly found to be rooted in invalid understandings of this form or process.
i've been a third level domain customer since 2006 not amused at all
If I had to guess, they're wanting to auction off the second level domains which will likely bring in more money than the rather unpopular third level registrations.
Now, years later, they are undoing it and they're even breaking existing domains. ("existing third level domain names will be terminated") This kind of breaking change shouldn't be allowed.
That was the starting point - we started as a webmail provider letting people share lastname.sometld domains
Without that, it's just another name.
They want to discontinue this because it's not especially popular or profitable. I take this to mean that they can't get enough money to support the administrative and developmental overhead.
Now, it's true that there's only ~100k people using first.last.name type domains, and managing those and their special rules is a time and testing suck for developers and administrators. And likewise the business of getting things done requires offices and other resources. On the other hand, domain name registration is, when you get down to it, a matter of administering a database and keeping things like the DNS in sync with it. It's technically inelegant and annoying, and no doubt a potential source of security problems (isn't everything?), but it's not actually a difficult or dangerous job, and the financial overhead seems like a negligible fraction of their revenue.
I get that this is an administrative headache. But administrative problems often do not require administrative solutions, in the sense that the administrative 'solution' is to generate some paperwork declaring the the problems outweigh the benefits and the impact on others doesn't matter and can be ignored. There's a sense throughout the document of people who took on a responsibility just wanting to wash their hands of it without any consideration for those who will be impacted. This is an ongoing cultural antipattern in Silicon Valley and the tech industry in general. There's an air of dishonesty to Verisign's claims 'we talked to a few people verbally and everyone's cool with it, therefore you should approve it because there's no opposition that matters.'
istm the best way to resolve this is via Coasean bargaining, that is Verisign pays people to go along with the shutdown, using some sort of objective formula and getting buy-in from a supermajority of registrants. For example they could offer 5 years of free firstname-lastname.com (or .name) hosting and guaranteeing domain forwarding for 2 years, or let people handle it themselves in return for $1000 or whatever. To be sure, some people might argue that their loss is much greater because they've built a big brand around their .name domain, but I think it's probably better to get broad acceptance for a blanket solution rather than turn it into a fight for the most $ that will inevitable end up in protracted arbitration or litigation, costing tens or hundreds of times more than buying people out.
None. There will not be any effect on the life cycle of domain names."
Well, aside from deleting all of them. But no other effect on the life cycle.
"3.6. Have you communicated with any of the entities whose products or services might be affected by the introduction of your proposed service? If so, please describe the communications. No. Not applicable."
I guess communication is not applicable when you just cease a service.
Sounds like a win to me if you play your cards right.
bonus: You set precedent for other people to sue and beat Verisign down cut by cut.