After an interlude, we are back with our Monthly Bulletin for June. The following are some of the top Domain industry stories from last month.
1. .AU Domains now managed by Afilias – Afilias has been chosen by the .au Domain Administration to provide registry services for over 3 million .au domain names. The .au domains were managed by Neustar prior to this transition. The auDA states this transition helps meet needs of Australia’s expanding digital economy and ensures reliability, security, and confidentiality of data.
2. ICANN releases its 2020 public meeting venues – ICANN’s heading to Cancun for its first meeting from March 7-12, 2020. Following which, the policy forum will be held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center in Malaysia between June 22-25, 2020 and the Annual General meeting will be held in Hamburg, Germany from October 17-22, 2020.
3. .CO gets Chinese approval – .CO is the first ccTLD to get a go-ahead in China after its own. CN domains, which now allows Chinese entrepreneurs to register domain names ending in .CO to manage their Chinese websites locally instead of using proxy servers.
4. .SPORT to enter GA in January 2019 – The Global Association of International Sports Federation (GAISF) has launched the .SPORT extension which enables their members to secure their .sport domain portfolio. Having an easily identifiable TLD like .sport will position domain owners as global leaders in the sports industry. Athletes, sports clubs, event organizers, sporting brands can apply for this domain extension.
5. MMX acquires ICM Registry – New gTLD registry MMX announced that it will be acquiring the ICM Registry which runs TLDs like .xxx, .sex, .adult & .porn for around $ 41 million – $ 10 million in cash and $ 31 million in stock.
6. Web.com announces its acquisition – Web.com, the parent company of Network Solutions and Register.com, is to be acquired by an affiliate of Siris Capital Group for $2 Billion, post which Web.com will be listed as a private company. This acquisition will help Web.com’s core domains business, their customer support and help them develop and participate in new opportunities for the growth of the company.
We hope we’ve helped you catch up with all the latest news from the industry. Stay tuned for more, next month!
