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Comment by Communitivity

3 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

18 comments

Communitivity

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kristjansson  2 days 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  3 days ago

Which TLDs allow users to registry arbitrary.arbitrary.tld other than .name?

  • rpdillon  2 days 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 days 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.

      3 replies →

  • cpburns2009  2 days ago

    Don't many ccTLDs do something like that with the ".co.xx" second-level domain? (e.g., ".co.uk")

    • zamadatix  1 day 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.

      2 replies →

ButlerianJihad  3 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.