Category: Domain names

ICANN76, Sally Costerton, the new interim president of ICANN, makes her mark

Candidate in March 2020 and then in March 2021, the city of Cancun finally had to wait until March 2023 and the end of the COVID pandemic to see a new edition of an ICANN summit in person. 2023, a very important year for the organisation. It will indeed celebrate its 25 years of existence while it is going through a risky period with an interim presidency after the resignation of its former President on 22 December 2022.

ICANN76, Sally Costerton, the new interim president of ICANN, makes her mark

Two women at the head of ICANN

Sally Costerton from the UK, who has been Vice President of Global Stakeholder Engagement (GSE) in charge of stakeholder engagement and awareness of ICANN and its mission worldwide since 2012, has been appointed interim Chief Executive Officer of ICANN following the departure of Goran Marby at the end of 2022. She is supported by Tripti Sinha who serves as ICANN’s Board Chair. Tripti is also Associate Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at the University of Maryland, in the Information Technology Division. This is the first time ICANN has had two women leaders. However, the situation echoes the creation of ICANN. As it was recalled at the opening ceremony, in 1998, when the US government gave ICANN the task of managing the DNS addressing system, a woman also held the position of Chair of the Board. This was Esther Dyson.

While leadership interims are rare at ICANN, this situation led to the organisation of a special session called “The Future of ICANN and the Next President and CEO”. A session where participants would have expected to interact with the new Board. This was not the case, as this session was like a kind of open mic without a direct interlocutor to express expectations towards the new Management of the organisation.

An interim presidency for a governance organisation also means a risky period, especially as there is no shortage of issues to address and the geopolitical context is tending towards increased fragmentation. However, although we do not know how long the interim presidency will last, Sally Costerton quickly made her mark at the start of the summit, when she declared, among other things, “I do not know everything, but I can rely on experts“. These words were reassuring and showed a pragmatic approach.

Transparency tested by experience

ICANN is a well-established organisation, as it has been holding summits for 25 years. The trend in recent years has been for the Supporting Organisations (SOs) and Advisory Committees (ACs) that make up the organisation to move towards greater transparency by opening up almost all their sessions to the participants. The most significant transformation has been in the GAC, the body representing governments, whose sessions were closed for many years before being fully open to all participants. This is an opportunity to salute the work of Manal Ismail, who after nearly six years at the head of the GAC is leaving her place to the Paraguayan Nicolas Caballero. A global tendency, therefore, of a nature to generate confidence, a key value to respond to the more and more numerous detractors of the ICANN governance mode.

But this tendency was reversed during this summit because many sessions were closed, “Closed sessions” to which even some affiliated participants could not have access neither in face-to-face nor in remote. Some of the participants were very upset and did not fail to point this out during the traditional Public Forum which usually closes the week of meetings.

Progress at a forced march?

The consensual approach, typical of ICANN, is both a strength for federating players around new obligations that are adopted, but also a weakness because it considerably slows down the progress of important work.

A striking example is the DNS abuse. Malicious use is indeed a real problem given the damage suffered by the affected Internet users. The GAC did not fail to recall this once again during a session where external experts were invited, such as a representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI. The latter indicated that in the United States, in 2022, more than 800,000 domain names were the subject of complaints causing losses of more than 10 billion US dollars. While the topic of DNS abuse has been a recurring theme at every ICANN summit over the years, it is clear that the consensus has shown its limits. Stakeholders in the GNSO, the generic name policy body, have never been able to agree on a way forward, whether it be a Policy Development Process or contract negotiations to revise stakeholder contracts with ICANN. After recent consultations with stakeholders, the GNSO finally decided on the second option, and the least we can say is that at ICANN76, the will was to reach a result quickly. An amendment to the registry and registrar contracts is being drafted and is expected to be presented in June and voted on by the parties concerned in October.  

The GNSO intends to build on the momentum of another contract amendment being voted on by stakeholders: an “RDAP” amendment. RDAP is an alternative protocol to Whois that provides access to domain names registration data. The outcome of the votes and thus the adoption of these contract revisions remained uncertain at the end of the ICANN summit as different thresholds of participation and favourable votes must be reached.

Partial adoption of recommendations for future rounds of new gTLDs

Another issue that some would like to see move forward more quickly is that of future rounds of new generic extensions. Indeed, the last window for applications for generic extensions dates back to January 2012. Since then, a policy development process has been conducted since 2015 to define a set of recommendations for the holding of new application windows. The Final report of this process was submitted to the ICANN Board in February 2021. In the autumn of 2021, ICANN surprised the community by announcing a scoping phase, an ODP (Operational Design Phase), which ultimately lasted until the beginning of this year. The board had not yet decided on the Final report of recommendations, a prerequisite to be able to start the implementation work of the recommendations. So the new interim president of ICANN was also very much expected on this subject.

And she quickly warned that the time was also for action on this subject: “You will see that things will be clarified” (editor’s note: on the next series of generic extensions), she declared during a session during the week. At the end of the week, at a Board meeting, 98 recommendations from the policy development process were adopted, with a further 38 put on hold as requiring further information. An implementation plan is also expected with a deadline set to 1st of August with a focus on internationalized domain names and extensions that ICANN organisation wants to focus on in future rounds and the need to clarify whether closed generic extensions will be offered.

Comments from NAMESHIELD

We can regret a return to a certain opacity in the decision making during ICANN76 where no less than 25 closed sessions were held. Nevertheless, this is perhaps where the progress made on subjects that were not progressing well came from, such as DNS abuse, a very important subject for NAMESHIELD, which offers several solutions to defend your online assets, and the holding of a forthcoming series of new generic extensions, where NAMESHIELD experts can also accompany you.

The other question was how the new interim ICANN President Sally Costerton, would handle her new role in a risky period for ICANN whose model is also increasingly challenged by States, international organisations and even technological alternatives. On this point, the new president appeared to be proactive, joining words to deeds, as on the subject of further series of new generic extensions. Sally Costerton seems to have already started to trace her way towards a full term CEO role for the organisation.

Image source : ICANN’s website

Afnic Registrar Day is back

Afnic Registrar Day

On January 10, the new edition of Registrar Day was held, organized by AFNIC, the registry of the .FR extension, this event is mainly intended for registrars.

While the event was usually held in December, this new edition, which was both accessible in person and remotely, and which took place after the pandemic period, was held at the beginning of this year, a way to place ourselves “in a new dynamic,” according to Pierre Bonis, AFNIC’s Director General.

The Registrar Day was an opportunity to review the highlights of the year 2022 for the organization, the most notable being the deployment of a new registry system on October 1 and the renewal by the French government of the .FR management concession for a new 5-year period. This renewal is accompanied by the implementation of new commitments such as access to registration data for authorized authorities or a strengthening of the fight against domain abuse.

In terms of figures, it should be noted that in 2022, .FR passed the 4 million mark in volume of domain names, a faster growth than the median rate of 2.0% recorded by the Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries (CENTR) for the year 2022 at the level of European ccTLDs. It is worth noting that .FR ranks third in terms of volume among the ccTLDs of the European Union, behind .DE (Germany) with some 17 million domains and .NL (Netherlands) with more than 6 million domains, and is tied for 7th place with .AU (Australia) at the global level among the 308 ccTLDs delegated to the root 1  

1 Source Verisign

Image source : Afnic’s website

The .FR counts today 4 million domain names

Managed by AFNIC (acronym for Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération – French Association for Cooperative Internet Naming, the French Network Information Center), the favorite extension of the French people has reached 4 million registered domain names!

Every week, between 12,000 and 16,000 new .FR domain names are registered. The .FR has become a reference domain, with a market share in France of nearly 40%, which has been growing for several years, particularly thanks to the digital transformation of French VSEs/SMEs. Thus, more than 50% of them have chosen a .FR domain name for their website.

Easy to register and inexpensive, this extension is synonym of trust and recognized for its reliability, with 87% of French people trusting it! For more information and to register your domain name in .FR, do not hesitate to contact a Nameshield consultant.

Image source : site de l’AFNIC

ICANN75, a dense summit before the ITU plenipotentiary meeting

Barely three months after the ICANN74 summit in The Hague, the one in Kuala Lumpur, 75th edition, has just been held. A second summit in hybrid mode, a mix of face-to-face and remote that claims almost 2000 participants from 112 countries, 60% of which were present on the spot. As if to better exist, two weeks before the particularly important appointment of a new secretary general at the head of the International Telecommunication Union, the technical counterpart of ICANN, ICANN proposed a dense summit. NAMESHIELD looks back over.

The sensitive appointment of a new general secretary at the head of the ITU

During the traditional opening ceremony of the ICANN75 summit, Goran Marby, the current head of the organization said “ICANN must be able to continue its mission for a single Internet“. This remark was referring to concerns about the upcoming appointment of a new general secretary to head the ITU, the UN agency in charge of regulating and planning telecommunications worldwide. After two mandates, the current secretary, the Chinese Houlin Zhao, will indeed give up his place to one of the two candidates in the running to succeed him: Doreen BOGDAN-MARTIN, an American or Rashid ISMAILOV, a Russian. Two candidates and two different visions of governance models as Goran Marby indicates: “One of the candidates wants the transfer of competences from the IETF (the Internet Engineering Task Force develops and promotes Internet standards) and ICANN to the UN“. During another question and answer session with the ICANN Board, the election was again invited in the exchanges since it was question of the increased risks of fragmentation of the DNS and the unique identifiers system if the ICANN missions are entrusted to the States. Later in the week, during a cross session between the ICANN Board and the GAC, the governmental body, the Russian representative of the GAC took advantage of a speech to answer in Russian to Goran Marby’s remarks, explaining that the Russian candidate at the head of the ITU does not want to dismantle the Internet. To better support his remarks he communicated the program of the candidate. Things calmed down at the end of ICANN75 during the traditional public forum, which we can regret that it lasted only one hour, a forum where once again the Russian representative of the GAC took the floor in English indicating that Russia is not against the Internet governance model and that it was necessary to take care to reflect the Russian position with accuracy.

The fragmentation of the ICANN model, a major concern

A sign that Internet fragmentation has become a major concern is that this topic was subject to a dedicated session. An interactive survey among the participants revealed that 53% of them consider that the Internet is already fragmented. The reasons mentioned are, on the one hand, the imbalance observed for access to the Internet from one continent to another, Africa being the least well endowed in this area. Other sources of fragmentation mentioned are the cost of subscriptions, which makes access impossible for the poorest, and the multiplication of laws at the state levels, which in some cases prevent full access to this resource, and in others prevent controlled access.

On the problems of connectivity in the world, Goran Marby emphasized the project “ICANN Ground”, a program under construction that will allow to solicit funds on specific needs. The endowment will come from the auctions of the new generic extensions round of 2012, some 233 million US dollars. Ukraine was the first state helped by ICANN with an emergency aid of 1 million US dollars made available in spring.

Is this good will enough to keep the unique Internet, totem of the organization? Indeed, apart from the political and societal fields, the technical alternatives, the so-called “alternative” roots, notably based on blockchain, have also been mentioned. These add new problems due to the lack of community and inter-community coordination with the DNS players. Name collisions indeed become inevitable.

So, to those who indicate that some actors are tempted to turn away from ICANN because of the length of the processes on the issues to be addressed, the organization answers that it is the price to pay for a community functioning by consensus. And on the subjects in debate, it is necessary to notice that there is no lack of them.

The period of amendments, the failure of the accuracy scoping team

As a sign that things are moving forward, the Registration Data Policy resulting from a revision of the Temporary Specification applied in response to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is entering its final stretch with implementation scheduled for early 2023. This policy will embed measures applied to registries and registrars on the collection, processing and storage of personal data related to domain names.

The Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP), which is used to publish domain name registration data in the same way as Whois, will be gradually replaced by Whois from next year, with a transitional phase of 18 months, provided that the majority of stakeholders approve the project during a forthcoming consultation. The idea of introducing additional measures in the contracts of the stakeholders to fight against DNS abuse is also gaining ground.

Other topics are still in development, such as the next round of new generic extensions, which we discuss below, and the Standardized System to Access Data (SSAD), which is intended to standardize access to registration data in the case of legitimate requests. A prototype will be developed over a period of 9 months.

But we could also note what has been described as the “failure” of the Accuracy Scoping Team, a working group that was supposed to evaluate the measures on the accuracy of domain name registration data and to identify the possible policy gaps. Indeed, due to the lack of a legal basis to access the data and thus assess the accuracy of the data, their mission could not be carried out. Their work is therefore stopped.  

A next series of new generic extensions under the impulse of internationalized extensions

The next series of new generic extensions, still in the framing phase, has been mentioned as a response to fragmentation thanks to internationalized extensions, extensions in native language, which allow, according to the words of Goran Marby, “to bring the Internet closer to its users“.  He hopes that the next series of new generic extensions will be “a real success from the point of view of internationalized extensions because the Internet is too often perceived as a Western instrument“. The ICANN Board also mentioned these internationalized extensions as a response to the accelerated concentration of the market because they can help “raise awareness of the need for a diversified ecosystem“. Internationalized extensions should benefit from a new spotlight with the launch next year of the first Universal Acceptance Day, on February 16. This event is intended to mobilize the technical community to take into account this type of extensions and domain names.

Comments from NAMESHIELD

We could fear that with the proximity of this summit with the previous one, hardly three months have passed since the ICANN74, this summit lacks substance because of the lack of time to progress on the debated subjects. In fact, the third and last annual ICANN meeting is usually held at the end of October. It is necessary to notice that ICANN75 has not lacked substance, either on the subjects that were discussed or on the particularly high number of sessions: 167 and things move forward. As some participants have indicated, we can regret a certain lack of interactivity with, for example, a Public forum shortened to one hour and sometimes a bit simplistic answers like Internationalized gTLDs to mitigate the concentration of our sector. On this subject, we can remind that NAMESHIELD is an independent French provider.

If the year 2022 has seen fragmentation become a central topic of ICANN summits, one may wonder if this extremely dense summit, anticipated compared to previous years, did not seek to be perceived as a marker of the usefulness of the ICANN organization in the face of current challenges, a summit placed just before the decisive election of the new General Secretary of the IUT. To the numerous animated sessions in the arcane of the ICANN now makes place the silence to follow this determining designation for the perpetuity of the organization or as to better hold its breath.

Opening date of Turkish extensions moved forward to September 14, 2022

Opening date of Turkish extensions moved forward to September 14, 2022

In an article of August 16, we announced the activation of TRABIS on September, the 29th. This opening date has been updated to September, the 14th.

The system of paperless allocation on the following extensions: .COM.TR, .NET.TR, .ORG.TR is now activated!

In anticipation, do not hesitate to protect your domain names before this future opening by contacting your consultants and account managers.

Image source : smuldur via Pixabay

You still have until September, the 20th to register your .AU domain name identical to your .COM.AU!

.AU domain names

The priority allocation period for .AU direct closes on 20 September 2022. If you hold a domain name in any other .au namespace (eg. com.au, org.au, id.au etc.), created prior to 24 March 2022, you are able to apply for Priority Status to register its exact match in .au direct until this date.

Domains on priority hold will be released on Monday 3 October 2022.

To be eligible to register a domain name in .au direct (forexample.au), the registrant must have an Australian presence as defined in licensing rules of AUDA.

For foreign companies, this means they must have a trademark registered with IP Australia, and the domain name must be an exact match of the trademark.

If the launch of .AU direct represents an opportunity for companies wishing to gain visibility on the Australian Web, it also constitutes a risk for trademark holders in case of reservation of domain names identical to their trademarks from a third party (whether it is a cybersquatter with the opportunity to register with a connection to Australia or a homonymous rights holder).

For any information, don’t hesitate to contact your Nameshield’s expert.

Image source: kitkatty007 via Pixabay

Upcoming liberalization of Turkish extensions

Upcoming liberalization of Turkish extensions

We announced recently that the administration of extensions in Turkey was changing and was entrusted to TRABIS and that the liberalization of .com.tr, .net.tr and .org.tr was imminent.

The starting date of the system called TRABIS (.tr Network Information System), which covers the management and operation of the system and database of domain names in Turkey, was announced at the meeting organized by BTK on 22/07/2022.

It is confirmed, TRABIS will be launched on September, the 29th 2022.

We can expect to see the date of liberalization of the Turkish extensions: .com.tr, .org.tr and .net.tr to be specified in the following days.

At the moment, it is still necessary to send documents to register your domain names in Turkey, and this until September, the 29th 2022.

In anticipation, do not hesitate to protect your domain names before this future opening by contacting your consultants and account managers.

Image source : adrimarie via Pixabay

[New gTLD] Launch of .KIDS

[New gTLD] Launch of .KIDS

Managed by DotKids Foundation, a non-profit organization, the new extension .KIDS will be launched on August, the 11th in Sunrise period.

Dedicated to children, parents, educators, communities and groups related to child protection, .KIDS is an extension dedicated to all subjects related to children.

The mission of DotKids is:

• to create a dedicated Internet space for kids, supporting and advocating for a better cyberspace favorable to the positive development of kids;

• to serve as a source of support to children’s rights and welfare initiatives, especially related to the Internet.

.KIDS Launch Schedule

The launch of .KIDS will proceed according to the following schedule:

  • TMCH Sunrise period: from 11/08/2022 to 14/09/2022

Reserved for holders of trademarks registered in the TMCH.

  • Community Sunrise period: from 20/09/2022 to 19/10/2022

Reserved for non-profit organizations, institutions or charities whose main mission is to advocate for children’s rights, children’s well-being, education or child-welfare.

  • Pioneer Domains period: from 19/10/2022 to 29/11/2022

Reserved for the participants of the .KIDS Pioneer Program, which aims to encourage active and positive use and the development of relevant content for .KIDS domain names. The program is designed to identify qualified applicants with the best potential and capabilities to maximize the development of a domain name in children’s best interest.

  • General availability: from 29/11/2022

Protection Policy

The registry has implemented protective Guiding Principles that require .KIDS domain name holders to not post any illegal or inappropriate content, to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the personal data of children who visit their website.

For more information on the conditions for registration of your .KIDS, please contact your Nameshield consultant.

Image source: https://www.nic.kids/

ICANN74 between lessons of the pandemic and awareness of the richness of the Internet

Between ICANN66 in Montreal, Canada and ICANN74 in The Hague, Netherlands, thirty-two months and seven summits will have passed exclusively online. In 2020, the prospect of a return to face-to-face meetings was already being discussed under the heading of ‘hybrid mode’, a mixture of face-to-face and remote meetings. The question remained as to when this could be implemented. A more favorable health context was needed, with all the questions posed by covid variants and its repeated waves, and sufficient guarantees of security for the participants, who generally come from the four corners of the world. The 74th edition, which was held last month in The Hague, was finally chosen to experiment the ‘hybrid mode’.

The return of face-to-face meetings with the lessons learned from the pandemic

A return to face-to-face sessions in The Hague, but nevertheless extremely constrained, due to health security. Pre-registration was compulsory for all sessions, with a limited number of places per session. This meant that some sessions were already fully booked well before the summit. The compulsory pre-registration led participants to pre-register for sessions they were not sure they would attend in order to reserve a place. Each participant also had to be able to prove that their vaccination status was up to date. Tests were provided on site as well as temperature taking. Finally, masks and distancing measures were mandatory, hence the limited number of places per session. The organization also decided that everyone should go through the video conferencing medium, including those present on site, an idea that aimed to ensure that all participants could interact equally. For those connected remotely, it was also noted that, as promised, the organization planned shorter sessions, generally not exceeding one and a half hour and very often even one hour. The conditions were therefore met to guarantee safe conditions for those present and good conditions for those connected remotely.

Two ODP processes running in parallel

The subject of the next series of new generic extensions has been discussed in sessions of various bodies. The project is now in the Operational Design Phase (ODP), which consists of an assessment of the risks, tasks and resources required, and which is to be concluded with an Operational Design Assessment (ODA). A related subject, that of closed generic extensions, has entered a new sequence. The principle of a so-called “Small Team”, which includes representatives of the GAC, the body representing governments, the ALAC, which represents end-users, and the GNSO, the body in charge of generic policies, has been validated in order to discuss this subject and see if a compromise can be found to envisage next steps. In the 2012 round, it was not possible to create such extension models. The question is therefore whether such extension models will be possible in the next round. Regarding the ODA, the GNSO, which estimates its publication on 31 October, has mentioned a possible postponement of six to eight weeks due to another ODA that is also mobilizing many people on the creation of a Standardized Domain Name Registration Data Access System for legitimate purposes. The SSAD ODA with contrasting conclusions, particularly with regard to its number of potential users and its particularly high cost, was delivered on 25 January. Its findings are still being evaluated. The next step on this second subject is the creation of a sort of prototype called “SSAD Light” which could be based on technologies mastered by ICANN teams to limit delays and costs. The latter would help to validate or not the implementation of an SSAD with, in this case, a prior implementation phase.

Accuracy of registration data, an important issue

Among the many issues currently being examined, the accuracy of domain name registration data is an important one for Europeans. Indeed, it is the Regulation on the Protection of Personal Data, the GDPR, which has prompted ICANN to call for the removal of personal data from registration directories and which, in turn, explains the aforementioned SSAD project and the accuracy of data. How can we ensure that masked data is accurate?  In October 2021, a Scoping Team began a mission to evaluate the obligations related to the accuracy of registration data. It planned to verify the effectiveness of the accuracy of the data. Their findings were expected in June, but the measurement of effectiveness has been hampered by the difficulty of obtaining the necessary data, which is stored at the registrars. Transmitting all registration data to ICANN for research purposes requires a legal basis. The Scoping Team is thus put on hold.

This is particularly important because, as EURALO, the European part of the At-Large body representing end-users, has pointed out, Europe is about to adopt the NIS2 Directive. The directive is due to be voted on in the plenary session of the European Parliament in September before being published in the Official Journal and transposed in the 27 European states. EURALO recalled that NIS2 provides for specific obligations notably on domain name registration data, storage, access and verification and therefore interferes with the role of the regulator ICANN. Moreover, if specific measures apply only to European providers, this creates a disparity of obligations between players, not to mention that the transposition of the text could be unequal in the states. Accuracy at the ICANN level can help harmonize future obligations for all players regardless of their location.

The impact of regulations and disasters

At ICANN73, which followed the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, ICANN had the good idea of creating a session dedicated to geopolitical, regulatory and legislative aspects. This meeting highlighted the risks of fragmentation of the single Internet model advocated by the organization. This meeting was repeated at this summit and allowed to note that the initiatives of the States are increasingly interfering with ICANN’s role as regulator.

EURALO had the good idea of completing this panorama with a session on governance and multipartyism in times of emergency. This session consisted mainly of a round-up of At-Large representatives from different continents. The representative from Ukraine logically started the session. In a moving speech about the tragedy in her country, she reminded us that the Internet infrastructure in her country has been heavily impacted. For the Asia-Pacific region, the representative mentioned the volcanic eruption in Tonga in January 2022, which cut the submarine cables and caused a five-week blackout on the islands. She also mentioned the situation in Myanmar where the Internet has been cut off since a coup in February 2021. The representatives of the two American continents spoke of natural and climatic disasters such as Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, which had knocked out telecommunications antennas and the electricity network. For part of the population, electricity and Internet access had been cut off for several months. Finally, the representative of Africa recalled that today at least 60% of Africans do not have access to the Internet.

Our comments

The return to face-to-face meetings was not an easy task for ICANN. While many participants felt that the proposed framework was too restrictive, it seems that the organization worked quite well overall in allowing everyone to attend the sessions fairly. The protection measures also seem to have dissuaded many participants from coming, including the speakers scheduled for the week of exchanges who assumed to participate remotely. Indeed, the figures given by the organization indicate 1817 participants from 101 countries, half of whom attended remotely. A good point for the planet but the limit was the possibility to interact outside the sessions.

On the ongoing policy development and review processes, the sessions during the week of the event reminded us that there are a lot of issues being dealt with in parallel, undoubtedly too many issues. This inevitably makes it difficult to keep track of them and causes delays, such as the two ODPs being conducted simultaneously on SSAD and the next round of new generic extensions. However, the overall feeling is that the topics are moving forward, even if the finish line is often unclear.

The last day provided a break from policy issues as geopolitical and regulatory issues and the impact of disasters reminded us that the governance model and access to the Internet are two particularly fragile critical aspects. While NAMESHIELD offers you solutions to the risks associated with compromised names and malicious registrations, we must also remember that we are not all equal when it comes to accessing the Internet. In addition to stricter legislation, other risks such as armed conflicts or climate change must indeed also be considered.

Image source : ICANN’s website

The .SEXY registry increases drastically its prices

The .SEXY registry increases drastically its prices

The registry that owns .SEXY will drastically increase the price of new registrations under this extension from April, the 30th 2022, 18:00 (Europe/Paris).

All registrations, transfers and renewals of a .SEXY domain name registered after April 30th 2022 will be charged 3850 € HT per year.

This very important price increase, which has not been explained by the registry, will only apply to domain names registered after this deadline.

Domain names registered before April, the 30th can still be renewed at the current price (70 times lower).

To protect your brands without suffering this increase, we invite you to register your .SEXY domain names now.

The Nameshield team is at your disposal for any questions.

Image source :Uni Naming & Registry (UNR) website