GoDaddy is paying $218 million for Neustar’s registry business

Company discloses acquisition price for Neustar business.

GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) unveiled its acquisition price for Neustar along with GoDaddy’s first-quarter earnings today. It is paying $218 million for the business and expects the transaction to close “in the coming months.”

The domain name company announced the acquisition last month.

With Neustar, GoDaddy will now control both the wholesale and retail side of many domain names. Neustar operates .us, .co, and .biz, among other domain names.

Neustar is currently owned by a private equity consortium led by Golden Gate Capital, which scooped up the business in 2017. The registry business sale is a carveout of the marketing data, security, and intelligence company.

Source:DNW

Better together: Uni joins GoDaddy

Uni has always been about catering to domain investors, domain lovers, and people who understand the value of the right name. We always aim to provide end-to-end solutions for the internet’s unique identifiers: domain names. Tools, technology, and tenacity have gotten us to the front of the line, and Uni will join GoDaddy. We couldn’t be more thrilled. Welcome to the future of domaining.

Why?

We’ve been tirelessly working away on our Market for years, making sure we’re building tools that make your life easier, tools that enable you to sell quicker, to sell on the go, with more exposure, with more data, more feedback and a process that works for all. We truly love domains, we love this industry, we love what we do, and we want to bring this technology to all, to reach the furthest parts of the world and make domains accessible for everyone.

Top 100 Domain Name Sales of All Time

Below you'll find a chart ranking the Top 100 Domain Sales of All Time. It is updated in real-time as new sales are reported so check back frequently. The list only includes all-cash sales of domain names, it doesn't include sales of websites, businesses or sales where there was an equity component.

During this period 761,815 sales $100+ were recorded totaling $1,822,142,719.

An additional 1,108,130 sales below $100 were recorded totaling $29,371,570.

A startup changed its domain from .com to .top

Some companies trade in longer .coms for shorter second level domains in other extensions.

I love watching the Chinese domain market because it is full of surprises. Recently, I read a news story that a Chinese startup changed its domain from .com to .top. That challenges the conventional wisdom of .com being the ultimate upgrade.

Will Chinese IDN domains become widely used?

So far, Chinese IDN top level domains have struggled.

 

Just a few days ago the Internet Society of China announced the formation of a working group to promote the use of Chinese domains. Is it the trigger we need to see Chinese IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) flourish?
As the organization is supported by the Ministry of Information Industry, this also suggests a strong desire from the Chinese government to see the widespread use of Chinese domains. The working group aims to resolve technical issues so that Chinese domains can work nicely with browsers, email systems, search engines, and other aspects of the internet. It will also promote innovation and application of Chinese domains to enable their popular use.

.Org updates: deadline extended, state regulators ask for time to weigh in

ICANN and Public Interest Registry have mutually agreed to extend the time that ICANN has to answers to its questions about the sale of .org to Ethos Capital by 30 days. ICANN also says that it will be asking more questions.

review Public Interest Registry’s (PIR)
Separately, The National Association of State Charities Officials has written to ICANN (pdf) to ask it to allow time for regulators to review the transaction.

How are new gTLDs doing in China?

Kassey Lee examines the market for new domains in China.

More than 1,000 new gTLDs (generic top-level domains) were released five years ago. How are they doing in China? Let’s look at the best-selling ones as they relate to China.

A bit of personal preference. I don’t like to call them “new gTLDs” because they are actually no longer new and the term “gTLD” is not easy to understand. So, I just call them niche extensions because many of them have specific uses — such as .club, .app, and .news.

Frank Schilling wins cybersquatting dispute

Indian insurance company falls short in UDRP.

Frank Schilling’s Name Administration has successfully defended the domain name CareHealthInsurance.com in a UDRP.
The three-person World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) panel determined that the Complainant, Religare Health Insurance Company Limited in India, did not show that Name Administration registered the domain name in bad faith. The Complainant had a high bar to overcome because care, health, and insurance are terms common

Judge dismisses harassment suit against Uniregistry

Judge rules that plaintiff waited too long to file lawsuit.

 

A U.S. Federal District judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought against Uniregistry and one of its former employees for sexual harassment by granting the defendant’s motion for summary judgment.
The former employee sued (pdf) the company and one of its former employees in July 2018, claiming sexual harassment and retaliation.