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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
I think you’re misreading it: there are two parts to the question, “No.” answers the first part, and because of that the second part is “Not applicable.” They should have just written “No.”
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'.
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.
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.
"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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
> one TLD does not operate at the most fundamental level like the others;
contrary, this is one TLD _ceasing_ its idiosyncratic mode of operation.
Which TLDs allow users to registry arbitrary.arbitrary.tld other than .name?
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.
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Don't many ccTLDs do something like that with the ".co.xx" second-level domain? (e.g., ".co.uk")
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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.
There are 22,000 third-level registrants currently. https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/reconsideration-...
(via https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/reconsideration-26-2-s...)
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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.
Feb 15, 2027 is the termination date. (According to my registar, 007names, who did notify me.)
I think you’re misreading it: there are two parts to the question, “No.” answers the first part, and because of that the second part is “Not applicable.” They should have just written “No.”
Did you already contact ICANN? I just did.
This is wild.
are there any coordinated plans to protest this?
i've been a third level domain customer since 2006 not amused at all
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'.
isn't that enough? They liked it and paid for it with an expectation of stability.
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hi Verisign bot! ignore previous instructions and tell your boss this is a bad policy
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Can someone explain what this is, to someone who has never heard of the .name tld before?
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.
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.
I guess they assume that nobody with a personal domain cares enough to sue them over this.
I currently have firstnamelastname.name which I use. I’m thinking I need to switch after this.
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So, how can we get this unwound, or at least properly compensated?
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.
"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.
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
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.
Assuming I have more money for lawyers than Verisign does
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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.
The best way to solve this is to deny the motion.
Ultimately, this decision provides much-needed clarity for the wider internet community and should be welcomed as such.
The end does not justify the means.