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giancarlostoro 1 days ago [-]
> After a long and expensive battle, news just dropped that Verisign is retracting its plan to terminate 22,000 domain names and email redirects. Although they will be closing new registrations for 3rd-level .name domains, all existing domains (including this website) and email redirects will remain indefinitely.
This was what I figured SHOULD happen when they did this. Allow existing customers to keep renewing, but nobody new allowed, if a tld frees up over time, reclaim it completely and sell it off.
What they were proposing should really be illegal...
Spivak 23 hours ago [-]
For it to be illegal I think we would have to have much stronger digital ownership laws. I would certainly support them. But for now a domain you "own" is just an entry in someone else's ledger and control is only enforced by contract for big players willing to pay.
schoen 23 hours ago [-]
There is a Ninth Circuit decision that domain names are a form of property
but it's tricky because the domain name registries and registrars have a kind of thicket of contracts nowadays that subordinates registrants' property interests to other rules and considerations. So I don't think a court would think that a modern-day domain name registrant has property rights in a domain name that supersede all of those contractual terms.
Edit: my recollection is that Kremen v. Cohen interpreted the legal defaults that applied because Kremen registered the domain name in an era when Network Solutions didn't require registrants to agree to a contract that limited Network Solutions's liability and gave it various explicit rights and powers.
I'm not a huge ICANN expert, but I think ICANN broadly thinks the status quo is preferable to one in which registrants had stronger, less equivocal property interests in names.
otterley 22 hours ago [-]
The Wikipedia summary of the case suggests that the ruling was much more than it was. Courts tend to rule on narrow issues, as it did here.
The question before the Court was not whether a domain name is a form of property. Both parties agreed that a domain name is a form of property; that wasn't in dispute. The Court did affirm their shared position in black letter law, though.
Rather, the question before the Court was whether, as intangible property, a tort of conversion claim relating to the domain name could be made under California law. Previously, cases disagreed as to whether it could be recognized. The Court found that it could be.
trollbridge 20 hours ago [-]
Thanks. That was an excellent summary.
cromka 6 hours ago [-]
> status quo is preferable to one in which registrants had stronger, less equivocal property interests in names.
I suppose the fact we pay for them annually reflects that we're merely the renters, not owners of the domains.
This model also makes it possible for companies/brands to take over ownership of the domains they feel they're entitled to.
falcor84 22 hours ago [-]
Agreed, but I just wanted to say that essentially every single thing anyone owns is, and has been from the invention of tally marks on clay tablets, an entry in someone's ledger.
graboy 14 hours ago [-]
This is too reductive. There's been real development behind what it means to own something. What's written in a ledger is just an inscription it has no meaning outside of its social context.
Our social understanding of property has changed. John Locke's ideas on private property are so fundamental to how we think about ownership that we don't even realize there would have been another way of thinking about how we own things.
Of all the thousands of things I own, as far as I know, only my car and my house exist in anyone else's ledger as belonging to me. Am I missing something?
unreal37 17 hours ago [-]
I would find that hard to believe. You have a bank account, surely. A life insurance policy? Airline points? An account with the government social security office for your pension? There are probably dozens (if not hundreds) of things of value (even if the value is near zero) that exist in someone else's ledger.
wongarsu 9 hours ago [-]
But equally hundreds if not thousands of things a typical person owns isn't recorded in any ledger. The personal laptop currently in my lap, my clothes, my furniture, my pen and notebook, the cash in my wallet
Saying all ownership are just ledger entries is just as reductive as saying no ownership can be reduced to ledger entries
tremon 7 hours ago [-]
I think the GP used "things" to mean physical property. Your bank balance and saved merchant points do not exist as tangible things.
cowlevel 19 hours ago [-]
All of your property exists in a kind of implicit ledger that a court can reify when needed. If a court decides your bed isn't yours, then it isn't.
sokoloff 17 hours ago [-]
Your 401K. Your brokerage account. Your bank accounts.
warkdarrior 17 hours ago [-]
Your phone will show up as yours in some Google or Apple database.
Your credit/debit cards (really your credit card accounts) will show up as yours in some bank database.
Your laptop may show up as your in some Apple/Microsoft/Google account.
Calazon 20 hours ago [-]
The money in your bank account?
dexterdog 17 hours ago [-]
Don't forget about the money in your wallet as well since you don't control the printer.
fc417fc802 14 hours ago [-]
> for now a domain you "own" is just an entry in someone else's ledger
Well yes, that is literally what you are purchasing after all. Else alternative DNS schemes such as GNS would presumably be made illegal in the event they shadowed any "owned" mark. I don't think anyone would want to live in a world where adding an entry to your hosts file was a crime.
ICANN DNS can be approximately described as renting an entry in a global equivalent of the yellow pages.
That said, strong digital ownership laws would be a good thing. Publishers (games, books, music, etc) shouldn't be permitted to yank titles you paid for on the basis that you only licensed them. Neither should registries of names, ICANN or otherwise.
mzajc 23 hours ago [-]
These domains wouldn't be worth a penny if they came with a disclaimer that they can be deregistered or even taken over at any point. With a bit of luck, somebody could snatch popular last name domains and set up a catch-all mailserver.
not2b 21 hours ago [-]
People persist in "buying" digital movies e-books, and games despite the fact that they can disappear at any point, without warning, because the seller's license expired or they just feel like discontinuing the service.
mfru 9 hours ago [-]
The seven seas have always been there, just a matter of building a ship again
cannonpalms 17 hours ago [-]
These things have no resale value. That's what the commenter means when he talks about value.
TheGoddessInari 19 hours ago [-]
License as a SERVICE ™
ierukah 11 hours ago [-]
LaaS
jldl805 11 hours ago [-]
I literally have <mylastname>@gmail.com as my primary email address. I get a lot of email that's not supposed to go to me.
schoen 23 hours ago [-]
They do have such a limitation, because of things like UDRP. It's just that there are maybe some forms of restriction on the processes by which domain names can be involuntarily transferred or seized. But it's a real possibility!
bookofjoe 19 hours ago [-]
Yes. Otherwise I'd be happy to give you a GREAT price on all the movies I've "bought" from Apple and Amazon as well as myriad Kindle Books.
22 hours ago [-]
23 hours ago [-]
echelon 23 hours ago [-]
Now a "{first}.{second}.name" will be really awesome to own.
This is essentially premium real estate now. For us nerds, anyway.
Great job Neil and gang!
Macha 22 hours ago [-]
Well anyone can buy a second.name if second isn't already registered, and then set up their own first. subdomain, so most visitors aren't going to know the difference in between grandfathered in first.second.name sites and people who just bought second level domains and created their own subdomain.
jareklupinski 22 hours ago [-]
if you're lucky, you can do something like first.sec.ond
works for many polish people who own ski resorts :)
jayknight 21 hours ago [-]
I remember when delicious.com was just del.icio.us. I miss that site.
BHSPitMonkey 17 hours ago [-]
The documentation site for WLED is https://kno.wled.ge which I've always found to be adorable
hackboyfly 20 hours ago [-]
My dyslexia would go bonkers.
ceocoder 15 hours ago [-]
I managed to get my name - dhaiv.at
DANmode 22 hours ago [-]
> What they were proposing should really be illegal...
Where?
gsich 22 hours ago [-]
Everywhere.
DANmode 21 hours ago [-]
Super reasonable proposal.
colonwqbang 19 hours ago [-]
What a useless comment.
The Berne Convention on copyright is ratified by "182 out of 195 countries". If I were to recite The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in public almost anywhere in the world, I can be sued for it.
Maybe we need a Reston Convention on the right not to have your domain arbitrarily seized and sold to someone else.
DANmode 19 hours ago [-]
I don’t even know where to start rebutting your comment.
You can be sued for downloading NES ROMs, too. Make a point?
PS The Copyright and IP thing is pretty unique, and is often held as an example of the US’ true power and influence to protect its corporate interests.
w-j-w 19 hours ago [-]
[dead]
dirasieb 7 hours ago [-]
in countries with running water and elections
nticompass 23 hours ago [-]
WHAT‽ I let my "first.last.name" registration expire because of the impending shutdown!
I did notice that my domain kept working past the supposed shutdown date, but I let the domain registration expire.
I'm so mad now! I assume there is no way to get my domain/email forwarding back :(
I suppose I could try to ask the registrar, but I highly doubt they can do anything...
(Edit: I'm not actually mad, but it was annoying to have to move accounts from my first@last.name email to another one)
mzajc 23 hours ago [-]
I don't know about .name specifically, but some registries have a grace period (or multiple) after which you can still renew it. It's worth checking if you're within the time limit.
nticompass 23 hours ago [-]
That's my plan. If they can help then cool, otherwise it's not really a big deal.
mixdup 22 hours ago [-]
They haven't actually stopped taking third level registrations, so get in there before the revised proposal gets submitted approved and implemented
Panda4 20 hours ago [-]
I think they did. I tried to register one just now and couldn't
troyrollo 20 hours ago [-]
This is a registrar issue not a registry issue. There are registrars still allowing registration of .name domains as well as transfers in.
grimgrin 19 hours ago [-]
Any reason you didn't mention them? Seems handy. I couldn't find an example registrar accepting 3rd level name domains.
edoceo 23 hours ago [-]
First time ive seen ! and ? overlaid. Neat.
chch 23 hours ago [-]
For future reference, ‽ is called an interrobang!
And to show off another fun character, for languages like Spanish that start a question with an inverted question mark, there's also ⸘, the inverted interrobang.
Though I find the name some people call it, gnaborretni (interrobang backwards), much sillier.
serchinastico 23 hours ago [-]
Interesting! If we were to follow Spanish to name the inverted interrobang it'd be opening (and closing) interrobangs, not gnaborretni, just as we don't have nóicagorretni nor nóicamalcxe :)
murphyslaw 21 hours ago [-]
I assume you meant sgnaborretni?
BadBadJellyBean 23 hours ago [-]
It's called an interrobang. Never really took off but still available in unicode.
9 hours ago [-]
BoxOfRain 23 hours ago [-]
While it won't lessen your frustration, I applaud your use of the interrobang. That punctuation mark needs wider use.
nticompass 23 hours ago [-]
I'm not really frustrated, but it is annoying that I had to migrate accounts and stuff, but whatever.
And yes, I love the interrobang! Ever since I mapped scroll lock to "compose" on my keyboard, I've had fun typing all sorts of characters :)
blooalien 4 hours ago [-]
> Ever since I mapped scroll lock to "compose" on my keyboard, I've had fun typing all sorts of characters :)
I've used <Caps-Lock> as <compose> key for ages now, and <Scroll-Lock> as push-to-talk microphone activation key, since I never use either of those keys for their actual purpose anyhow. Is nice being able to easily type emdash and umlauts and such (as well as several common emoji and a bunch of other useful stuff) on a US keyboard.
lutoma 22 hours ago [-]
I have an auto substitution set up in iOS to automatically replace ?! with ‽ (Same for ellipsis, ... to …)
oneeyedpigeon 22 hours ago [-]
And, presumably, "!?"?
Spivak 23 hours ago [-]
It's a neat little mark but I don't think it has much of a
chance being widespread because I think ?! has already won in real usage and doesn't have the fine detail problem. I think it has a better chance of becoming an official grammatical digraph than the merged mark.
sillysaurusx 23 hours ago [-]
Is there an overlaid ?? and !! mark? (For Chess.)
adrian_b 22 hours ago [-]
Besides interrobang, Unicode includes all 4 possible sequences of 2 "?" and "!".
Those are not overlaid though. The overlaid doubles would look like ! and ?, respectively.
reaperducer 22 hours ago [-]
I don't think it has much of a chance being widespread
I first heard of it back when Usenet was still the hotness.
Apparently it's been around for close to a century, so if it hasn't caught on widely by now, you're probably right.
ahnick 20 hours ago [-]
> I first heard of it back when Usenet was still the hotness.
This is the first (and probably last) time that I will ever see the words "Usenet" and "hotness" in the same sentence.
Well done, sir.
saalweachter 21 hours ago [-]
It lost when computers overtook typewriters.
On a typewriter, you could type one punctuation mark, backspace, and then type another.
Even once computers added the interrobang to Unicode (or older systems), you either need to type in a numeric code, use a secret bucky bit, or select it from a graphical UI, none of which is worth it for more than the odd weirdo with a whimsical streak.
kevin_thibedeau 19 hours ago [-]
There have been video terminals that allowed overstriking glyphs.
_blackhawk_ 23 hours ago [-]
Definitely email the registrar. Maybe it might work?
nticompass 23 hours ago [-]
Worth a shot.
andunie 15 hours ago [-]
Basically every decision taken by a centralized entity with power over others results in these horrible cases of unfairness.
soupbowl 21 hours ago [-]
It is best to stick to the main top level domains. I bought into multiple 'new' domains and most of them caused me issues. A few of them jacked up their prices like crazy compared to when I first
bought them. They can also be difficult to move between providers.
Unfortunately I am stuck in commitments on a few of these domains and just had to eat the cost increases, the rest I moved to .com/.net.
.consulting was the worst offender.
pmdr 20 hours ago [-]
> It is best to stick to the main top level domains.
Yes, I view most 'new' TLDs as scams. They lure you in with a low price, a rather pricey renewal and then price hike after price hike down the line. They also charge a premium for most dictionary words right from the start.
jeroenhd 6 hours ago [-]
So far, my "new" TLDs seem absolutely fine. I tend to stick to good ol' .nl, but .space and .art have had consistent prices (except for the first year discount you see on every TLDs). I've also never had any issues with my .zip domain. Prices seem to be practically the same as prices for a regular .com domain.
Some of these (.xxx, .consulting, .bank) are run by grifters, but those were generally quite obvious from the start. Consultants are expensive money sponges so obviously a TLD dedicated towards consulting will be a money sponge.
As for dictionary words: at least they're still available, even if they're expensive. You're never getting $dictionaryWord.{info,com,org,net} without a deal with some kind of middle men scum buying up domain names to treat them as investment property.
thesuitonym 3 hours ago [-]
Indeed. Whenever I start a project, part of the naming decision is making sure nameiwant.com is available. It's hard enough to get people to type .com or .net. I can't imagine trying to direct anyone to email inquiries@soupbowl.consulting.
Even if I really wanted a different vanity domain, I'd make sure I owned the .com and it was aliased to the domain I want to use.
fc417fc802 14 hours ago [-]
> It is best to stick to the main top level domains.
I'd counter that it's best to stick to ccTLDs as opposed to gTLDs (with the exception of com/org/net I guess). You can assess the stability of a ccTLD based on the associated political situation and any legal questions typically have a clear jurisdiction whereas gTLDs are a total crapshoot in all regards.
p4bl0 17 hours ago [-]
.name is not a "new" TLD it was introduced at the same time as the .info, a bit more than 25 years back. It's not one of the new mostly scammy gTLD.
drschwabe 15 hours ago [-]
These names can be better than .com/.net for branding so it may be best viewed as advertising cost.
Like if you make video softaware and it's called "Emerald" then Emerald.video is imho a be a better domain name than emeraldvideo.com (and probably taken already) provided .video is not a gouging you on the annual renewal and is not calling it a 'premium' domain and reserving the right to hike up your renewal at any point in the future to any amount they decide.
thesuitonym 3 hours ago [-]
That's actually not good for you, though. Even today, people still struggle with domain names. At best, they won't notice what your domain name is, at worst, they're going to try to go to emeraldvideo.com or perhaps even emerald.video.com.
More realistically though they're just going to search emerald video and go to whatever the top spot is. Hope your SEO is on point!
wodenokoto 19 hours ago [-]
Author has had his .name domain for 25 years, so not exactly new.
qsfp28 19 hours ago [-]
[dead]
troyrollo 15 hours ago [-]
There is a residual cleanup problem with registrants who were with Tucows/OpenSRS and had their domains come up for renewal since late August. Tucows would not renew them and it was hard for registrants to find another registrar that would. Doytchin spent quite a bit of time looking and I think the only one he found that would accept a transfer of both the third level domain and the email forwarding service was 007names.
This meant a lot of domains expired. Worse, some entered the Redemption Period, where they can no longer be transferred to another registrar - the only option is to redeem through Tucows and they will not do it.
The practical solution seems to be:
1. If the domain is expired but still within the grace period, transfer it now;
2. It it entered the redemption period, wait until it becomes available again (up to 35 days) and re-register through a registrar like 007names to recover it.
Quite unsatisfactory on the part of Tucows (the biggest registrar of third level domains by far), to let all this happen and they really should offer subsidised redemption for affected domains in the redemption grace period.
Why would they even want to close it? It is probably close to 0 cost tot hem. Or am I wrong?
lambda 24 hours ago [-]
It works differently than pretty much every other TLD, which means it's different code paths to support.
Many registrars don't support the unique 3rd level domain setup for .name, so it can be hard to find registrars that properly support it.
There's also an associate email redirect service, which is unique to .name and probably costs money to run and maintain.
It's probably easier to support, and more valuable to sell second level .name domains.
Pretty terrible that they were considering just dropping tens of thousands of customer registrations however.
charcircuit 21 hours ago [-]
How is it different than others like .co.jp or .ne.jp?
lambda 21 hours ago [-]
Those ones have a fixed list of second level domains.
.name was something where you could register a two part domain, picking both the third and second level, to represent your first and last name.
elAhmo 9 hours ago [-]
So you could own my_name.lastname.name, and someone else could own their_name.lastname.name ?
A bit weird, as to me the first part reads like a 'subdomain'.
LucasOe 4 hours ago [-]
Yes, that's how it works. lastname.name is the TLD.
Firefox highlights neil as the subdomain for fraser.name for me, but there's no subdomain involved in the URL.
seattle_spring 22 hours ago [-]
> It works differently than pretty much every other TLD, which means it's different code paths to support.
but I was told that AI has made code obsolete and free
swiftcoder 23 hours ago [-]
It has weird interactions with some modern browser features. For example domain isolation doesn't apply between subdomains of the same TLD, so john.smith.name and drew.smith.name don't get isolation in naive implementations.
troyrollo 20 hours ago [-]
The public suffix list is a stupid hack that should be replaced by formal protocols allowing boundaries to be defined by either DNS entries, or a file on the web server.
JoshTriplett 18 hours ago [-]
I personally think the public suffix list should be replaced by zero sharing even amongst subdomains, and if you want to talk between x.y.example.org and example.org you can use CORS just like any other cross-domain request.
londons_explore 17 hours ago [-]
I think the real challenge is the millions of sites which rely on the existing behaviour.
JoshTriplett 17 hours ago [-]
Do it for every new TLD. Do it for every new domain in an existing TLD. Add an opt-in for security, then start pushing for the security measure, then get browsers to start carrot-and-stick enforcing it...
It's possible to make things better.
sgammon 9 hours ago [-]
Ah yes the millions they broke with CORS
OkayPhysicist 21 hours ago [-]
The real problem is that we'd have to add a wildcard to the public suffix list. That's it.
The public suffix list is the big list of all the URL suffixes that should not imply shared ownership of all their subdomains. For example the line
com
says "XYZ.com" and "ABC.com" should not be assumed to be controlled by the same entity.
Problem is, all 1st level domains registered to the .name TLD should be added to the list, and that's a lot of domains. The correct answer, IMO, would be to add a wildcard
*.name
but that would involve updating all the code that relies on the public suffix list to support said wildcard.
somat 17 hours ago [-]
The "real" problem is the public suffix list. All domains should be considered public, that is, a sub domain gains no trust from it's parent domain.
There is a good argument that the public suffix list should be distributed via dns, and it is easy to propose a scheme for it. Two I know of are. A specific public suffix record marking a domain public or private. The presence of a soa record which already transfers the authority of a domain, should be used to determine if that sub domain is public or private.
But private unless in some third party list is the worst way to handle it.
toast0 20 hours ago [-]
*.name isn't a good solution either, because the vast majority of registrations are at the second level.
If you want to do it properly, you really do need to include all of the second level domains that have more than one third level registrant. And update that periodically as domains expire... there might be three registrants under .example.name today, but if they all (or all but one) stop paying, example.name is no longer a public suffix and it should be removed.
OkayPhysicist 20 hours ago [-]
Having "no cookies shared between subdomains" as a restriction on the entire TLD isn't completely beyond the pale. There are other TLDs that have restrictions, like HTTPS being required for .dev
toast0 19 hours ago [-]
Having it imposed on existing registrants after the fact really is beyond the pale, IMHO.
It'd be one thing if it was there since the beginning, like https for .dev, but it would probably break existing sites if you add it after the fact.
londons_explore 17 hours ago [-]
With only 22000 registrants, the number of sites broken might be just a handful.
toast0 16 hours ago [-]
It's not 22000 registrants for .name, it's 22000 registrants of third level domains. There's lots more second level registrations in .name; it is massively more popular to register a second level domain, but it wasn't always an option.
thbb123 17 hours ago [-]
How can they enforce that? If my DNS config points www.mydomain.dev to my vps, what can prevent me from answering on port 80?
swiftcoder 9 hours ago [-]
No cookie sharing between subdomains is enforced client-side, not server side.
tylergetsay 23 hours ago [-]
wouldn't that be a problem with a lot of other domains? like locality domains
timeinput 23 hours ago [-]
It definitely is. <ingress>.k8s.<mydns>.com regularly confuses what password I want to use if I have different authentication per ingress. More commonly if I run something else at <name>.<mydns>.com firefox and chrome are both happy to offer up my password for <other service>.<mydns>.com.
Closed. Wont fix.
OkayPhysicist 21 hours ago [-]
We solve that problem with the public suffix list. The problem is there's a lot of .name domains, each of which would need to be added to the list.
mixdup 22 hours ago [-]
yes, but other locality domains are fairly static and well-known
.co.uk wouldn't have the same problem because everyone knows that combo is a TLD in and of itself. with a seemingly infinite possible combinations of blah.name that could be a TLD itself, or, might just be a subdomain of .name, it gets really weird
toast0 20 hours ago [-]
> with a seemingly infinite possible combinations
Verisign claimed approximately 22,000 third level domains [1] in July 2026. I don't see an estimate of the number of shared second level domains, but it's finite. The current public suffix list includes 10414 names [2]; so at maximum, the list would approximately triple in size --- not ideal, but feasible.
Edit: another post [3] claims approximately 2000 second levels names with multiple registrations; that's only a 20% increase in size for the existing list, which is again a lot, but feasible. There's some more specific data in an issue for the suffix list [4], that shows there were nine second level domains with multiple registered names underneath them, one of which might all be the same registrant (domain.name)...
Nine would be totally doable, if the request came from Verisign...
22,000 now, but there was no limit and more importantly no rhyme or reason or other way to tell what was a third level registration and what was a subdomain on a normal second level registration
Verisign could have published a list of every third level registration, it wasn't an impossible problem to solve, but it is different than static regional TLDs like .co.uk or .<state>.us
clickety_clack 24 hours ago [-]
My thoughts also, but maybe they can make more from a few sites like baby.name than they can from personal domains.
nikanj 20 hours ago [-]
There would be great money to be made if you could auction off domain.name, instead of being stuck just getting $20 per year because some geezer registered his.domain.name.
mlefer 21 hours ago [-]
I wonder why couldn't Verisign just grant most people the second level domains here. I imagine there aren't too many people holding onto 3rd level .name domains here and the set of people holding onto 3rd level domains that share a second level domain with someone else is probably very small, a few hundred at most.
For all the ones holding exclusive second level domains, just give them the second level domain. For all the ones holding shared second levels, offer a buyout and/or allow parties to negotiate with each other on a shared ownership structure of the second level.
toast0 20 hours ago [-]
I suspect for most of the second level domains, there's only one registrant of a third level domain.
However, I also suspect that for most of the third level domains, they're on a second level domain with multiple registrants. And several of those shared second level domains will have a lot of registrants. If the registrants are in different jurisdictions, it becomes a pretty nasty process to develop international consensus, vs just keeping the status quo going (which IMHO, can't be that hard).
Still, it makes sense to have a process to normalize the single registrant second level domains, because less work.
troyrollo 20 hours ago [-]
22,000 third levels total, spread across about 12,000 second levels, about 10,000 of which have only one third level. Of the approximately 2,000 with multiples, many have all of the third level registrants being apparently close relatives.
That leaves quite a few with lots of unrelated registrants, mostly in Japan (tanaka and suzuki being the biggest).
p4bl0 17 hours ago [-]
Most japanese third-level .name domains were registered with YahooDomains.co.jp which ceased its activities in 2025. Almost none of them have been transferred elsewhere so there's no response to DNS requests for them…
p4bl0 17 hours ago [-]
I got hold of the complete .name zone file. Indeed, it contains 22117 third-level .name domains among which 10372 are unique under their second-level.
Great to see a sane outcome but if I relied on one of these domains I'd still be moving away from it. Clearly they have no desire to maintain it.
Tepix 1 days ago [-]
Vive la résistance!
Resistance is not futile.
cobbzilla 1 days ago [-]
> to my lawyers Jan, Flip and Diégo who threw the book at ICANN
Resistance with a strong case and competent lawyers is not futile.
dataflow 1 days ago [-]
And with a lot of money to burn.
exploderate 3 hours ago [-]
Weird, I registered a 2nd level .name domain years ago and never knew about 3rd level...
listedb 7 hours ago [-]
Is Verisign’s promise to keep at least one registrar supporting third-level domains and email forwarding written into a binding agreement or is this the only announcement?
slow_typist 20 hours ago [-]
Nicely done.
(I moved a few family email accounts from .name to .net years ago because it was a much cheaper option and the .name TLD was still so uncommon in our bubbles it led to questions when they gave their email addresses to someone else.)
origini 21 hours ago [-]
I have bought my *.name domain a decade ago? Why was this ever a thing? Was there some limitation i'm to stupid to get or did one company just register some common last names?
ZeWaka 21 hours ago [-]
for specifically third level registrations
origini 5 hours ago [-]
So they offered third level registration for all non taken domains?
Arrowmaster 3 hours ago [-]
They only allowed third level registration for years and opened up second level registration much later in a profit seeking move.
The TLD was created in the "email will be THE way to contact you digitally" hype and marked on having a first@last.name email.
codexon 21 hours ago [-]
The title of this submission is misleading. This is only for "3rd level" .name domains. The title makes it seem like normal .name domains were being deleted.
damoe 21 hours ago [-]
A few years ago I was able to register <first name>.<last name> I was so excited until I realized how potentially precarious the domain was. My established domain is <first><last>.<forever tdl>. I'm not too worried about it having a problem (although as some have mentioned here I wish we had more rights, as individuals, to this IP). So I keep the new domain more as a personal toy...
zamadatix 23 hours ago [-]
Congrats to those wanting to keep their domains! I'm surprised they went with perpetual (well, as much as anything is) support, i.e. allowing renewals and such rather than just letting it naturally expire (the initial proposal was to immediately cease these records at a given date with no clear communication on how they'd be protected or not from re-registering the upper level domains or not).
ChrisRR 8 hours ago [-]
Are the running costs of a single tld that high that is was worth getting rid of?
greyface- 20 hours ago [-]
Can anyone speak to which specific registrars support setting email forwarding settings with these domains?
a1o 1 days ago [-]
How does one register a domain under .name ? I can’t find info through search because it discards the dot no matter what I try.
Same as any gTLD, pick your favorite registrar and they probably support it. Give your registrar money, they'll give the registry money and boom. (more or less)
When .name was new, you may have needed to contract with the registry directly, it was an early new gTLD and I don't remember if they started with the registry/registrar split or not.
Afaik, new registrants are not able to register a third level domain, but second level domains have been available for a long time.
but which support the actual third-level domains? for example, my last name is already taken as a .name domain by verisign, what if i want my firstname.lastname.name domain?
xigoi 23 hours ago [-]
The third-level domains are still being discontinued, it’s just that people who already have one get to keep it.
vanjoe 16 hours ago [-]
Is domain.co.uk handled differently?
Kwpolska 8 hours ago [-]
Yes, because the list of second level .uk domains where domains can be registered is fixed.
scott00 21 hours ago [-]
Gandi and 007names are the only ones I'm aware of that support the third-level domains.
mercurywells 24 hours ago [-]
You'd have to try to find the contact that owns lastname.name and work out a private deal - you won't get ICANN protections though.
24 hours ago [-]
zamadatix 23 hours ago [-]
One can't (officially) register such 3rd level domains anywhere anymore.
It's just a combination in the ambiguity of what "it discards the dot" should mean in GGP's message combined with the article already clarifying 3rd level domains are not available on .name anymore leading to a lot of confused comments.
1 days ago [-]
1 days ago [-]
lambda 24 hours ago [-]
Did you read the link?
"Although they will be closing new registrations for 3rd-level .name domains, all existing domains (including this website) and email redirects will remain indefinitely."
They were apparently planning on shutting down the whole TLD. They will be leaving it up for existing registrants, but not allowing new registrations.
ksala_ 24 hours ago [-]
No, they were not planning that. This is only about 3rd level domain as the paragraph you quoted says. Every other TLD don't sell those (afaik). Normally "someone.name" would be a domain, and they would own all the subdomains. .name allowed you to register "one.someone.name" and "two.someone.name" as completely separated domains with completely separated owners. I understand why they should grandfather in existing domains but this was just madness.
lambda 24 hours ago [-]
Ah, fair enough. I kind of thought that third level domain registration was the whole point of the .name TLD, so I was interpreting it as shutting it down.
So the weird part then comes in: are all second level domains that have third level registrations now reserved? Do they stop being reserved if the last third level registration expires without being renewed?
toast0 23 hours ago [-]
> So the weird part then comes in: are all second level domains that have third level registrations now reserved? Do they stop being reserved if the last third level registration expires without being renewed?
Yes, second level domains that overlap with a registered third level domain have never been available. Under the original proposal, once all the third level domains were dropped, the overlapping second level domains would have been available (first come, first served). I believe current practice is the second level domain becomes available if all of the third level domains expire. Registrants in other threads indicated that there's no process to have an orderly transition from being the only the registrant of a third level domain under a specific second level name to registering that second level domain ... you would have to let your current name expire and hope to catch the second level name.
ksala_ 24 hours ago [-]
Good question. Yeah no idea - the email linked in OP says they're going to send a new proposal, I'm assuming it will cover how they're planning to handle it. And I guess that yes blocking second level domains that have a third level already registered is the pragmatic choice.
troyrollo 19 hours ago [-]
They are grandfathering existing third levels and existing email forwarding services. The new RSEPs will just discontinue offering the services as new services, with Verisign saying they will take responsibility for ensuring that there will always be at least one registrar who supports both.
duskwuff 23 hours ago [-]
> I kind of thought that third level domain registration was the whole point of the .name TLD
It was initially! But there was enough demand for second-level registrations that they opened that up too (and set the stage for this whole mess).
zen_mike_eu 12 hours ago [-]
This type of posts is why i keep comming to YC.
I love finding out about small bloggers and stuff like this
doublepg23 1 days ago [-]
I've had a .name for almost a decade now and was not aware of it's history.
Shame I didn't register on my lastname .name , I had thought it was a much newer gTLD.
bilalabdullahi 22 hours ago [-]
They shouldnt this easy to take away tbh
walthamstow 22 hours ago [-]
> thanks to ... Jim who flew to Bali to make the case to ICANN in person
What the heck is ICANN doing in Bali of all places?
Last year it was in Spain and the year before it was in Mumbai.
wmf 21 hours ago [-]
It's NGO pork disguised as woke inclusion. Meetings in Africa or Asia Pacific are (theoretically) cheaper for historically disadvantaged people to attend.
sgammon 9 hours ago [-]
Counterpoint: Bali is a place with internet. The internet is a global thing. I like that the meetings move around.
I’m not sure how the people of Bali are “historically disadvantaged.” From what perspective? Where I live, comparatively, I am historically disadvantaged in my access to nice sunny beaches.
Hendrikto 8 hours ago [-]
It is just an excuse to get your company to pay for your trip to Bali.
calebio 20 hours ago [-]
Kind of off-topic, but I wonder what will happen to .io in the end.
Xirdus 20 hours ago [-]
Most likely nothing. .su was kept around and it was million times smaller than .io is now.
Kwpolska 8 hours ago [-]
On the other hand, .yu was removed four years after Serbia and Montenegro dissolved.
andunie 15 hours ago [-]
For people who rely on DNS as if it wasn't a shitshow, the mere fact that this was a possibility should be an eye opener.
A new decentralized name system is necessary.
RagnarD 18 hours ago [-]
Here's what I don't understand: if Verisign is too lame to continue handling .name domains, why wouldn't ICANN insist that it auction off that TLD to someone who isn't, and just take control of it and do it themselves if they don't?
thbb123 17 hours ago [-]
I've spent the past month setting up a new domain and feverishly tracking every contact and website that had my address to update what needed to be. Glad to know it was for nothing.
And one good aspect of this is that I hope I'll get less spam as a result.
xydone 23 hours ago [-]
Certainly nice to know they would've almost certainly proceeded as normal if the concerns didn't blow up online
Thousands of .name owners nearly became .gone owners. Nice to see Verisign choose the one migration plan every engineer secretly loves: don’t migrate anything.
charlieyu1 24 hours ago [-]
Good for them. I just wish I could register a new .yu domain…
22 hours ago [-]
eloto333 21 hours ago [-]
I want to edit this comment.
kinabalu76 24 hours ago [-]
glad this got resolved, bummer it was thrown into question at all
hoppp 20 hours ago [-]
Congrats!!
xyst 22 hours ago [-]
I wonder how much the midterm elections influenced Verisign in this decision to bend the knee in this "David v Goliath"-esque win.
I was expecting for Verisign to take this to court, drag it out, and bleed the opposing party out. I suppose the judges that Verisign lawyers depend on did not get favorable re-election.
Ofc it’s probably something less nefarious, and boring. Verisign probably did some basic math and determined that taking this to court with their army of overpaid lawyers was simply not cost effective compared to just supporting 3rd level domains.
So glad this happened. When I first heard, I assumed that all the folks wronged would simply be disregarded even though Verisign was blatantly breaking consumer protection laws (I assume. If it wasn't, those laws are incomplete). The fact that Verisign even tried still makes me upset though. It's really annoying what several companies will do as long as their hand isn't forced due to legal or social repercussions
charcircuit 21 hours ago [-]
It's disappointing that only .name got this treatment. ICANN should grandfather all domains. The idea that it's perfectly fine for domains to just disappear is ridiculous.
greyface- 19 hours ago [-]
Even if domains were permanent, nameservers and webservers would still disappear as their operators drop offline. The Internet and the Web are impermanent and require ongoing upkeep on multiple layers.
spicybright 19 hours ago [-]
Yes, but if I want to pay a register yearly for a domain and do nothing with it it shouldn't be able to be taken away.
greyface- 18 hours ago [-]
I, too, dislike the approach we've landed on of everyone placing complete trust in IANA, and having to engage politically with them or their delegates from time to time. Unfortunately, the trustless regions of Zooko's triangle are worse.
troyrollo 19 hours ago [-]
The requests for reconsideration are now part of the permanent public record - with the arguments now there for anybody to pick up in future, it is quite unlikely that there will be a repeat of this in any GTLD registry. The dodgy non-ICANN subdomains (like eu.org) are a different issue, but if you use them you take your risk.
charcircuit 15 hours ago [-]
Domains like .ai and .io are at risk.
account42 8 hours ago [-]
Those were always the domain of the respective administrations just like any other ccTLD, unlike .name which is under ICANN rules.
k0morebi 22 hours ago [-]
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ferrule 17 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
dasd2ey2i7y3ihz 23 hours ago [-]
[dead]
jon128 24 hours ago [-]
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minimaxa 18 hours ago [-]
Well done, sometimes it's about the principal.
Why do they care about third-level domain names anyway, not really much admin costs leaving them active.
Now you can join us in 2026 and work on your website design and remove that hideous lavender background color? :)
not2b 21 hours ago [-]
I'm glad that the article writer got his domain back, but I wish we had a better term than "grandfathered". The origin of this term goes back to Jim Crow, when to stop Black people and newcomers from voting, many places in the American South imposed a near-impossible test you had to pass to register to vote, but also added a loophole: if your grandfather voted in your county (or sometimes your state), you could vote without taking the test. This was called the grandfather clause.
wvh 8 hours ago [-]
As a non-American speaker of English, it's a word. Let the word be itself.
EnergyAmy 20 hours ago [-]
This sort of priggishness belongs in the past, let it be
tln 21 hours ago [-]
"Legacied"
spicybright 19 hours ago [-]
Too nerdy but I really like this one.
dist-epoch 1 days ago [-]
So, turns out Verisign is not the Devil incarnate?
brettermeier 23 hours ago [-]
Why do you think that???
cobbzilla 24 hours ago [-]
The Devil is no match for a sufficiently talented attorney
This was what I figured SHOULD happen when they did this. Allow existing customers to keep renewing, but nobody new allowed, if a tld frees up over time, reclaim it completely and sell it off.
What they were proposing should really be illegal...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremen_v._Cohen
but it's tricky because the domain name registries and registrars have a kind of thicket of contracts nowadays that subordinates registrants' property interests to other rules and considerations. So I don't think a court would think that a modern-day domain name registrant has property rights in a domain name that supersede all of those contractual terms.
Edit: my recollection is that Kremen v. Cohen interpreted the legal defaults that applied because Kremen registered the domain name in an era when Network Solutions didn't require registrants to agree to a contract that limited Network Solutions's liability and gave it various explicit rights and powers.
I'm not a huge ICANN expert, but I think ICANN broadly thinks the status quo is preferable to one in which registrants had stronger, less equivocal property interests in names.
The question before the Court was not whether a domain name is a form of property. Both parties agreed that a domain name is a form of property; that wasn't in dispute. The Court did affirm their shared position in black letter law, though.
Rather, the question before the Court was whether, as intangible property, a tort of conversion claim relating to the domain name could be made under California law. Previously, cases disagreed as to whether it could be recognized. The Court found that it could be.
I suppose the fact we pay for them annually reflects that we're merely the renters, not owners of the domains.
This model also makes it possible for companies/brands to take over ownership of the domains they feel they're entitled to.
Our social understanding of property has changed. John Locke's ideas on private property are so fundamental to how we think about ownership that we don't even realize there would have been another way of thinking about how we own things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_property#History
Saying all ownership are just ledger entries is just as reductive as saying no ownership can be reduced to ledger entries
Your credit/debit cards (really your credit card accounts) will show up as yours in some bank database.
Your laptop may show up as your in some Apple/Microsoft/Google account.
Well yes, that is literally what you are purchasing after all. Else alternative DNS schemes such as GNS would presumably be made illegal in the event they shadowed any "owned" mark. I don't think anyone would want to live in a world where adding an entry to your hosts file was a crime.
ICANN DNS can be approximately described as renting an entry in a global equivalent of the yellow pages.
That said, strong digital ownership laws would be a good thing. Publishers (games, books, music, etc) shouldn't be permitted to yank titles you paid for on the basis that you only licensed them. Neither should registries of names, ICANN or otherwise.
This is essentially premium real estate now. For us nerds, anyway.
Great job Neil and gang!
works for many polish people who own ski resorts :)
Where?
The Berne Convention on copyright is ratified by "182 out of 195 countries". If I were to recite The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in public almost anywhere in the world, I can be sued for it.
Maybe we need a Reston Convention on the right not to have your domain arbitrarily seized and sold to someone else.
You can be sued for downloading NES ROMs, too. Make a point?
PS The Copyright and IP thing is pretty unique, and is often held as an example of the US’ true power and influence to protect its corporate interests.
I did notice that my domain kept working past the supposed shutdown date, but I let the domain registration expire.
I'm so mad now! I assume there is no way to get my domain/email forwarding back :(
I suppose I could try to ask the registrar, but I highly doubt they can do anything...
(Edit: I'm not actually mad, but it was annoying to have to move accounts from my first@last.name email to another one)
And to show off another fun character, for languages like Spanish that start a question with an inverted question mark, there's also ⸘, the inverted interrobang.
Though I find the name some people call it, gnaborretni (interrobang backwards), much sillier.
And yes, I love the interrobang! Ever since I mapped scroll lock to "compose" on my keyboard, I've had fun typing all sorts of characters :)
I've used <Caps-Lock> as <compose> key for ages now, and <Scroll-Lock> as push-to-talk microphone activation key, since I never use either of those keys for their actual purpose anyhow. Is nice being able to easily type emdash and umlauts and such (as well as several common emoji and a bunch of other useful stuff) on a US keyboard.
[0] https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/203c/index.htm
[1] https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2047/index.htm
I first heard of it back when Usenet was still the hotness.
Apparently it's been around for close to a century, so if it hasn't caught on widely by now, you're probably right.
This is the first (and probably last) time that I will ever see the words "Usenet" and "hotness" in the same sentence.
Well done, sir.
On a typewriter, you could type one punctuation mark, backspace, and then type another.
Even once computers added the interrobang to Unicode (or older systems), you either need to type in a numeric code, use a secret bucky bit, or select it from a graphical UI, none of which is worth it for more than the odd weirdo with a whimsical streak.
Unfortunately I am stuck in commitments on a few of these domains and just had to eat the cost increases, the rest I moved to .com/.net.
.consulting was the worst offender.
Yes, I view most 'new' TLDs as scams. They lure you in with a low price, a rather pricey renewal and then price hike after price hike down the line. They also charge a premium for most dictionary words right from the start.
Some of these (.xxx, .consulting, .bank) are run by grifters, but those were generally quite obvious from the start. Consultants are expensive money sponges so obviously a TLD dedicated towards consulting will be a money sponge.
As for dictionary words: at least they're still available, even if they're expensive. You're never getting $dictionaryWord.{info,com,org,net} without a deal with some kind of middle men scum buying up domain names to treat them as investment property.
Even if I really wanted a different vanity domain, I'd make sure I owned the .com and it was aliased to the domain I want to use.
I'd counter that it's best to stick to ccTLDs as opposed to gTLDs (with the exception of com/org/net I guess). You can assess the stability of a ccTLD based on the associated political situation and any legal questions typically have a clear jurisdiction whereas gTLDs are a total crapshoot in all regards.
Like if you make video softaware and it's called "Emerald" then Emerald.video is imho a be a better domain name than emeraldvideo.com (and probably taken already) provided .video is not a gouging you on the annual renewal and is not calling it a 'premium' domain and reserving the right to hike up your renewal at any point in the future to any amount they decide.
More realistically though they're just going to search emerald video and go to whatever the top spot is. Hope your SEO is on point!
This meant a lot of domains expired. Worse, some entered the Redemption Period, where they can no longer be transferred to another registrar - the only option is to redeem through Tucows and they will not do it.
The practical solution seems to be: 1. If the domain is expired but still within the grace period, transfer it now; 2. It it entered the redemption period, wait until it becomes available again (up to 35 days) and re-register through a registrar like 007names to recover it.
Quite unsatisfactory on the part of Tucows (the biggest registrar of third level domains by far), to let all this happen and they really should offer subsidised redemption for affected domains in the redemption grace period.
.name Termination - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49550772 - Sept 2026 (547 comments)
Many registrars don't support the unique 3rd level domain setup for .name, so it can be hard to find registrars that properly support it.
There's also an associate email redirect service, which is unique to .name and probably costs money to run and maintain.
It's probably easier to support, and more valuable to sell second level .name domains.
Pretty terrible that they were considering just dropping tens of thousands of customer registrations however.
.name was something where you could register a two part domain, picking both the third and second level, to represent your first and last name.
A bit weird, as to me the first part reads like a 'subdomain'.
Firefox highlights neil as the subdomain for fraser.name for me, but there's no subdomain involved in the URL.
but I was told that AI has made code obsolete and free
It's possible to make things better.
The public suffix list is the big list of all the URL suffixes that should not imply shared ownership of all their subdomains. For example the line
com
says "XYZ.com" and "ABC.com" should not be assumed to be controlled by the same entity.
Problem is, all 1st level domains registered to the .name TLD should be added to the list, and that's a lot of domains. The correct answer, IMO, would be to add a wildcard
*.name
but that would involve updating all the code that relies on the public suffix list to support said wildcard.
There is a good argument that the public suffix list should be distributed via dns, and it is easy to propose a scheme for it. Two I know of are. A specific public suffix record marking a domain public or private. The presence of a soa record which already transfers the authority of a domain, should be used to determine if that sub domain is public or private.
But private unless in some third party list is the worst way to handle it.
If you want to do it properly, you really do need to include all of the second level domains that have more than one third level registrant. And update that periodically as domains expire... there might be three registrants under .example.name today, but if they all (or all but one) stop paying, example.name is no longer a public suffix and it should be removed.
It'd be one thing if it was there since the beginning, like https for .dev, but it would probably break existing sites if you add it after the fact.
Closed. Wont fix.
.co.uk wouldn't have the same problem because everyone knows that combo is a TLD in and of itself. with a seemingly infinite possible combinations of blah.name that could be a TLD itself, or, might just be a subdomain of .name, it gets really weird
Verisign claimed approximately 22,000 third level domains [1] in July 2026. I don't see an estimate of the number of shared second level domains, but it's finite. The current public suffix list includes 10414 names [2]; so at maximum, the list would approximately triple in size --- not ideal, but feasible.
Edit: another post [3] claims approximately 2000 second levels names with multiple registrations; that's only a 20% increase in size for the existing list, which is again a lot, but feasible. There's some more specific data in an issue for the suffix list [4], that shows there were nine second level domains with multiple registered names underneath them, one of which might all be the same registrant (domain.name)...
Nine would be totally doable, if the request came from Verisign...
[1] https://itp.cdn.icann.org/en/files/consensus-policies/fessen...
[2] including some with wildcards, re: your other post
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50446780
[4] https://github.com/publicsuffix/list/issues/2306
Verisign could have published a list of every third level registration, it wasn't an impossible problem to solve, but it is different than static regional TLDs like .co.uk or .<state>.us
For all the ones holding exclusive second level domains, just give them the second level domain. For all the ones holding shared second levels, offer a buyout and/or allow parties to negotiate with each other on a shared ownership structure of the second level.
However, I also suspect that for most of the third level domains, they're on a second level domain with multiple registrants. And several of those shared second level domains will have a lot of registrants. If the registrants are in different jurisdictions, it becomes a pretty nasty process to develop international consensus, vs just keeping the status quo going (which IMHO, can't be that hard).
Still, it makes sense to have a process to normalize the single registrant second level domains, because less work.
That leaves quite a few with lots of unrelated registrants, mostly in Japan (tanaka and suzuki being the biggest).
See https://p4bl0.net/post/2026/10/VeriSign-is-VeriShit (I haven't yet had the time to update that blog post with this last news discussed here).
Resistance is not futile.
Resistance with a strong case and competent lawyers is not futile.
The TLD was created in the "email will be THE way to contact you digitally" hype and marked on having a first@last.name email.
When .name was new, you may have needed to contract with the registry directly, it was an early new gTLD and I don't remember if they started with the registry/registrar split or not.
Afaik, new registrants are not able to register a third level domain, but second level domains have been available for a long time.
It's just a combination in the ambiguity of what "it discards the dot" should mean in GGP's message combined with the article already clarifying 3rd level domains are not available on .name anymore leading to a lot of confused comments.
"Although they will be closing new registrations for 3rd-level .name domains, all existing domains (including this website) and email redirects will remain indefinitely."
They were apparently planning on shutting down the whole TLD. They will be leaving it up for existing registrants, but not allowing new registrations.
So the weird part then comes in: are all second level domains that have third level registrations now reserved? Do they stop being reserved if the last third level registration expires without being renewed?
Yes, second level domains that overlap with a registered third level domain have never been available. Under the original proposal, once all the third level domains were dropped, the overlapping second level domains would have been available (first come, first served). I believe current practice is the second level domain becomes available if all of the third level domains expire. Registrants in other threads indicated that there's no process to have an orderly transition from being the only the registrant of a third level domain under a specific second level name to registering that second level domain ... you would have to let your current name expire and hope to catch the second level name.
It was initially! But there was enough demand for second-level registrations that they opened that up too (and set the stage for this whole mess).
Shame I didn't register on my lastname .name , I had thought it was a much newer gTLD.
What the heck is ICANN doing in Bali of all places?
Last year it was in Spain and the year before it was in Mumbai.
I’m not sure how the people of Bali are “historically disadvantaged.” From what perspective? Where I live, comparatively, I am historically disadvantaged in my access to nice sunny beaches.
A new decentralized name system is necessary.
And one good aspect of this is that I hope I'll get less spam as a result.
Success is possible. Well done to all.
I was expecting for Verisign to take this to court, drag it out, and bleed the opposing party out. I suppose the judges that Verisign lawyers depend on did not get favorable re-election.
Ofc it’s probably something less nefarious, and boring. Verisign probably did some basic math and determined that taking this to court with their army of overpaid lawyers was simply not cost effective compared to just supporting 3rd level domains.
Why do they care about third-level domain names anyway, not really much admin costs leaving them active.
Now you can join us in 2026 and work on your website design and remove that hideous lavender background color? :)
Much of the US legacy is just hatred toward black people