Comment by toast0

> Those are not quite the same though, being something specific and short so essentially behave like a tld in their own right. For a long time you couldn't buy a <something>.uk, it had to be .co.uk or similar, so those _were_ the tld.

For a short time, you couldn't buy <something>.name either.

It's a little different in that there were fixed second level domains to register under in .uk (and most of the other country code TLDs that used similar schemes), and second level domains in .name opened up a few years into its existance, rather than decades in like for .uk

But still ... thousands of people signed up for these things and there should be an orderly process to give them continuity. Some of the third level domains are the only registrant under their second level name, they should get upgraded to having the second level with advanced notice (it's not quite the same service, but close enough).

For those on a shared second level, if Verisign doesn't want to manage that anymore, they should come up with a transition plan other than too bad, so sad. You could tranisition to an intermediary as the registrant of the second level domain and privately providing third level registration and email forwarding. It's not a lot of customers, but it's not a lot of work either. Put in some durable contractural terms allowing the 3rd level registrants to change providers by consensus and hope it doesn't blow up for another decade or so.