Kevin Ohashi - Entrepreneur I Love Learning New Things.

Site that tracks car prices has been hijacked.

The creator of tabelafipebrasil.com says his website has been stolen. The popular site has received 93 million page views since it was founded in 2013.

An unknown person has stolen the domain name and website TabelaFipeBrasil.com according to a lawsuit (pdf).

João Almeida started and ran the popular website that tracks vehicle prices in Brazil. According to the lawsuit, the site received 2.5 million page views last month and over 93 million since it was launched in 2013.

But Almeida found out that the domain was stolen from his registrar account and transferred elsewhere. Almeida alleges that the thief is now generated revenue from the Adsense ads on the site. (I reviewed the current Google Adsense code on the website and compared it to the ad code captured in Archive.org and it has changed. Some security services now use Adsense publisher IDs to track bad actors and I wonder if they could connect this to other domains used by the alleged thief.)

Wiley Rein LLP is representing Almeida. It filed the case as an in rem action in Virginia, where .com registry Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) is located.

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She says he registered it on her behalf when they were together but refuses to give it back.

File this one under “don’t let anyone else register your domain.” And it stings.

An acupuncturist in New York has sued (pdf) her ex-boyfriend, saying he registered a domain name on her behalf and refused to give it back after they broke up. She uses the domain name for her acupuncture business and the domain includes her name*.

She alleges that he registered it under Whois privacy in 2016 when they were dating. It still resolves to her website but she recently became aware that the underlying ownership is in her ex-boyfriend’s name.

Law firm Lewis & Lin, which handles many domain name cases, filed a lawsuit on her behalf claiming a violation of the Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA).

I’ve seen other cases in which a significant other registers a domain in their name and refuses to give it back. So there’s a lesson there.

*After much thought, I decided to not publish the plaintiff and defendant name in this blog post, but of course you can see it in the actual legal filing if you must. The important thing here is that this might serve as a warning and prevent this from happening to someone in the future.

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Update app is a complete rebuild that will lead to new features in the future.

GoDaddy has launched an updated GoDaddy Investor iOS app for bidding on domain name auctions. A new Android app should be released in the coming weeks.

The updated app has a new look. It also lets you sort your lists by end time, price, alpha and auction type.

While the features aren’t a big upgrade from the last version, a lot has been done behind the scenes that will lead to big updates in the future, including the ability to search for domains. (Right now you have to add domains through the web interface for them to show up in the app.)

Also, the app fixes an issue for people that use a physical security key for two-factor authentication. They can use app-based two-factor codes to log into the app now.

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Electronic Frontier Foundation is fighting the new .org contract.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) fights for the civil liberties, free speech and privacy on the internet. The non-profit is vocal about domain name policy, and it’s latest salvo is over the new .Org contract ICANN signed. While others focus on the removal of price caps, EFF (which uses a .org domain) is concerned about the extension of URS and other provisions to the agreement. On today’s show, EFF Senior Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz discusses the group’s concerns.

Also: Reverse domain name hijacking, NHL’s domain win, stolen domain lawsuit and Sedo’s new lander.

This week’s sponsor: NameSilo. Use code DNWPod for $1 of your next domain.

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts to listen to the Domain Name Wire podcast on your iPhone or iPad, view on Google Play Music, or click play above or download to begin listening. (Listen to previous podcasts here.)

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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There was some debate on twitter this weekend about GoDaddy domain appraisals. This debate will never end but I have some suggestions for GoDaddy to improve its tool.

1. Change the language for domains greater than $25,000

Automated appraisals break down when domains are very valuable. GoDaddy displays the message “more than $25,000” for domains that are worth more than $25,000. People seem to focus on the $25,000 number anyway and complain about the value being “only $25,000”.

GoDaddy should consider changing this language to say something like “HIGH Value: this domain is a high value domain, and our systems aren’t currently able to appraise…” or something like that.

2. Change the threshold for high value domains

Based on what I’ve seen, domains that value for more than $10k might well fall into the $25k plus category. So it probably makes sense to apply this HIGH label to domains valued at over $10k or so.

3. Remove new TLD valuations

GoDaddy seems to have improved valuations of new TLDs but there’s still not enough data to back up the values. I’d remove any TLD for which there aren’t enough comps. Valuations shouldn’t be based on a percentage of value of another TLD.

4. Add a time-factor

A legitimate criticism is that you can plug valuable keywords into the appraisal system and get valuations over $1,000 even if the domain isn’t registered. I just entered MortgageCorn.com and the valuation tool says it’s worth $1,377. MortgageSeltzer.com appraises for slightly less.

One way to prevent this from happening is by adding a time factor into valuations of domains registered for less than one year. So domains registered less than one month appraise at registration fee, and then values slowly creep up over time.

I know it’s just a hack, but it will solve the problem.

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Take stock of your top Domains.

On Twitter yesterday, Shane Cultra said he didn’t know why so many people keep their domain portfolio private.

2nd thought. If you are ashamed to publish your top 50 names then essentially you already know that your names aren’t that good. Which is fine unless you operate as a domain investing expert

— Domain Shane Cultra (@DomainShane) August 22, 2019

I asked Shane what his current top 10 domains were, and he has a nice list. I also created my top ten list (all .com):

DNW
Astounding
Lakeway
Comptroller
Comatose
CandyCorn
BagCheck
ExecutivePay
RoyaltyCheck
Brainstorms

After coming up with this list within a few minutes, I decided to take stock of my overall portfolio.

I’ve said this before, but my main business is Domain Name Wire. Domain investing is secondary. I also run PodcastGuests.com, which has turned into a nice business.

I roll over my cash from domain sales into domain purchases. I don’t need to throw off excess cash from my portfolio because of my other businesses.

Looking at the market and what I’m buying lately, I’ve been focusing on domains that I can resell for $1k-$5k. I’ve added a couple of hundred domains to my portfolio over the year, but most have been acquired for under $200 on GoDaddy Auctions.

This is probably reflected in my top domain list. My domain investing isn’t focused on blockbuster sales. I’m impressed with people who do that but it’s not how I play the market. So I like my top ten list, but beyond 20 or so domains my portfolio drops off in a hurry.

Beyond my top 10 domains, here are some others I like:

DataMapping – becoming a big business
Leptospirosis – it’s long, but the other day at the vet I was told I need to get this vaccine for my dog
USMCA – I created a simple site on this domain and it gets hundreds of visits per day.
PatentLicensing and PatentMining – I spent time in this business. It’s big.
LeftofCenter – A three word domain that gets lots of purchase inquiries.
PodcastSearch – As you know, I’m big on podcasts.
Heists and CrimeSpree – They have negative connotations but I like them.
ShowMeState – Since I grew up in Missouri.
CivilForfeiture – I bought this because I was frustrated about civil forfeiture. Its days are probably coming to an end now.
HullSpeed – Great brand.

What are your top 10 domains.

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The namespace still has 380,000 domains.

.App registrations fell on the one year anniversary, but the namespace still has about 380,000 domains. Image from nTLDstats.

Google’s .app domain name entered general availability on May 8, 2018. It immediately took off with 100,000 domains registered almost immediately and 180,000 domains under management within a couple of days.

There are now 180,000 .app domain names and rising!

— Ben McIlwain (@CydeWeys) May 10, 2018

These early registrations came up for renewal in May this year. The first anniversary of a domain launch is often called “the junk drop”. People who got a bit too excited at launch drop their marginal domains.

In the case of .app, it took a while to see the impact of this. It takes up to 80 days for .app domains to work through the deletion process: up to 45 days of autorenew grace, then a 30 day redemption grace period followed by 5 days of pending delete.

The .app namespace continued to grow up until July 13, according to nTLDStats. Then the early domains started to drop and the zone shrunk, but it hasn’t been too bad.

nTLDstats shows that the namespace peaked at 446,730 domains on July 12. It is now 381,195. (There are fewer domains in the zone file, but nTLD stats estimates domains that don’t have nameservers.)

Based on these data, the namespace has lost over 65,000 domains. New domains have been registered during this period that offset some of the losses.

Ben McIlwain of Google Registry told Domain Name Wire:

We are happy with .app’s strong renewal rates. This validates our belief that customers are interested in new TLDs, and in the case of .app especially as meaningful, functional and more secure gateways to the internet. We look forward to seeing more developers building on .app.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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A recession will eventually come. What will you do when it hits?

I have an iron-clad prediction to make: a recession is coming.

By not putting a date on this prediction, it’s 100% correct. A recession will come. Pundits will debate when it will happen, but we can be assured that it will happen at some point.

The last recession was particularly rough. Historians say it was the worst since the Great Depression, hence the term Great Recession. And with that as the most recent recession experience, people will be cautious when the downturn comes.

I consider my adult life to have started in the year 2000. I graduated college and went to work for a tech company. I did what a good, financially responsbile person was supposed to do: I maxed out my 401k from my first day on the job.

Then the dot.com bubble burst. My company and portfolio imploded. The best investment I made back then was in savings bonds. Yes, savings bonds. They’re still paying about 6% interest to this day.

The dot.com bust colored my experience. I kept a lot of cash on the sidelines and was very conservative in my investments. Then when the Great Recession hit, I piled into the markets. I invested all the way as the market dropped.

The market doubled in value in short order and I felt smart. But I realized that the market’s gyrations were tied in lock step to government decisions and pronouncements, not the reality of the underlying companies in the stock market. This gave me an uneasy feeling and I became a conservative investor again. I thought Dow 14,000 was way to high and pulled off my stock investments.

In hindsight, this was a stupid thing to do. I learned another lesson: the government will do all that it can to prop up the markets. Since then, the government has done more than just backstop against wild drops and recession; it has propped up the market with both fiscal and monetary stimulus.

So after nearly 20 years as an “adult”, I now realize that the government is more powerful than the markets.

As for domain investing, what can you do as a domain investor when recession hits?

I recently sat down with a financial advisor to look at how I should prudently invest my money. How I should look at the long term. We talked about investing in the stock and bond markets, but also alternative investments.

She cautioned against going to heavy into alts. It dawned on me that I’m actually very heavy in alts even when you exclude things like real estate investments. Domain names are an alternative investment.

We’ve seen a lot of good domain sales lately for premium, one-word domains. Startups are snapping these up. What happens when startup funding pulls back? Will this significantly impact these sales?

If they do, it might be a buying opportunity for domain investors. The ones who have cash available.

On the other hand, with recession comes layoffs. People who lose their jobs often start their own business and buy a domain name to do it. But these aren’t the people that will spend hundreds of thousands on domain names.

While you don’t want to hold onto cash forever, you should think about how you want to deploy it when times are frothy.

 

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A language instruction site, 3D printing company and Bosch bought domain names this past week.

This week was one of those in which GDPR made it hard to figure out who bought domain names. Many of the domains Sedo sold don’t resolve to a website yet and have blocked Whois information.

I’m curious who bought PharmEasy.com for €30,000 or DigitalBrain.com for €25,550. And who paid $25,000 for UI.dev? We’ll have to wait to see.

In the meantime, here are the sales I could connect to an end user.

(You can view previous lists like this here.)

Lingu.com $9,000 – Lingu Norge AS offers language courses at the domain name Lingu.no. It will use the .com site to teach English online.

CricketExchange.com $6,250 – This is an online cricket betting site.

AdaptiveManufacturing.com €4,999 – The domain forwards to Markforged.com, a metal and carbon fiber 3D printing company.

Klick-Tipp.de €4,500 – Klick Tipp is an online marketing company. It also owns Klick-Tipp.com.

Credisol.com $3,920 – CFG Partners operates financial companies including El Sol in Panama.

Zigns.com $3,500 – Intersign Corporation in Chattanooga, TN. The company makes signage for businesses, churches and more.

Leo.in $2,999 – The website has a coming soon notice and a cool logo.

Xlock.de $2,888 – Bosch makes an “angle grinder” called X-Lock.

CloudInsider.de EUR 2,500 – Vogel Communications Group forwards this domain to its cloud computing information site cloudcomputing-insider.de.

Sertom.com €2,200 – The domain forwards to the site for Seravesi 1960, a machinery company.

LIEngergy.com $2,000 – Li Energy in Great Britain.

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National Hockey League wins cybersquatting dispute against the domain NHL.cc.

The National Hockey League has won a cybersquatting case it brought against the owner of NHL.cc. .CC is the country code for Cocos Islands but is generally used as a generic domain extension.

A Chinese man who registered the domain claimed he hadn’t heard of the NHL when he registered the domain. He noted that it’s too hot to play ice hockey in Zhengzhou, China and that most people in China didn’t become aware of the sport until 2015 when Beijing was selected to host the 2022 Olympic games.

Whether or not this is true, the domain owner didn’t help his case by explicitly calling out that NHL stands for National Hockey League on his website (see image above).

The text roughly translated to “The National Hockey League is a shorthand NHL (French: Ligue Nationale de Hockey), a shorthand LNH, a professional sports league composed of North American ice hockey teams.”

The NHL first tried to buy the domain name. It cleverly refers to its overture to buy the domain as being undertaken by an “investigator”. It did not identify itself when it tried to acquire the domain. The NHL raised its offer to $6,000 but the domain owner’s last offer was $18,000.

I’m not sure that the panel got this case right and the fact that the NHL first tried to buy the domain could have been used as a defense. But once the domain owner added the National Hockey League reference to the site, he put himself in the corner needing to defend himself.

I bet the domain owner is kicking himself now for not accepting the $6,000 offer.

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Infocert S.p.a. files cybersquatting complaint in abuse of UDRP.

Infocert S.p.a., which bills itself as the largest certification authority in Europe, has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name InfoCert.com.

The company appears to use the domain names Infocert.digital and Infocert.it for its websites.

It filed a cybersquatting complaint under UDRP with World Intellectual Property Organization. The case was dead on arrival; the owner of the domain registered it in 1998, which was six years before Infocert started its business.

In finding reverse domain name hijacking, panelist Nick Gardner also noted that the Complainant neglected to mention that it tried to buy the domain before filing the cybersquatting dispute. He also said Infocert’s case that “infocert” was a coined word that could only relate to itself was wrong. It is an “obvious conjoining of the abbreviations for ‘information’ and ‘certificate’,” he noted.

Studio Torta S.p.A. represented the Complainant. Greenberg & Lieberman represented the domain owner.

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Here’s who bought Uniregistry’s top sales from the past week.

A new company called Joyride paid $300,000 for the domain name Joyride.com.

Uniregistry’s top public sale this past week is Joyride.com. A startup that helps car dealers put unsold inventory to use plunked down the cash for the domain. It’s off to a great start with its domain name!

Here’s who bought the rest of the top public sales.

1. joyride.com $300,000 – Joyride.com helps car dealers monetize unused inventory through car sharing and sales.

2. throwpillows.com $18,000 – The domain is forwarding to TheCleanBedroom.com with a tracking link. However, it’s been pointing there since before this sale, so I’m not sure if it will now point elsewhere or if this was a payment plan deal.

3. activate.ca $15,882 – This place looks cool. From the website: Activate is a state of the art facility with a wide variety of gaming experiences. You and your group enter inside a video game experience and become the players to actively and mentally complete challenges.

4. thevic.com $15,000 – No idea on this one. It’s registered to SafeNames.

5. goldcap.com $15,000 – No public Whois and it doesn’t resolve.

6. alien.co $12,000 – The domain doesn’t resolve and Whois says the owner is in Hong Kong.

7. libertybell.com $10,000 – A California business called Reliable Media. I can’t find any more information about the company.

8. redpipe.com $10,000 – I’m not sure who bought it, but Red Pipe Cafe is a good candidate.

9. wavix.com $9,000 – The Whois is protected by DomainsByProxy.

10. cyberunit.com $8,000 – All Whois tells us is that the buyer is in Canada.

11. boooing.com $7,500 – If you’re wondering why someone would by this domain, consider how close it is to Booking.com

12. inflor.com $7,000 – INFOR is a Brazilian firm that makes forestry software. It forwards the domain to Inflor.com.br.

13. leasingautomobile.com $5,500 – Rombrac Automobile forwards the domain to leasingautomobile.ro.

14. firsthospitality.com $5,000 – First Hospitality, a company in the hotel and restaurant business, forwards the domain to its website at fhginc.com.

15. viaglo.com $5,000 – Fly Go Voyager operates travel websites.

16. soundbooth.com $5,000 – Soundbooth is a marketplace connecting music professionals to people who need audio edited. I think this is the best deal this week.

17. ecells.com $5,000 – The buyer is an eBike seller that operates E-Cells.net.

18. explorify.com $5,000 – This is a fun name for a travel site.

19. bibook.com $4,800 – Renance – Automated Financial Services Oy, a financial software company.

20. solarfuse.com $4,000 – Solar Fuse is a solar broker in Tempe, Arizona.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Company that bought domain name for $100,000 in 2013 says that it has been stolen.

Netherlands corporation Diginus BV has filed an in rem lawsuit (pdf) against the domain name 1001.com, which it alleges was stolen from it.

The company paid $100,000 to acquire the domain name on Sedo in 2013, according to NameBio.

Based on historical Whois records, it appears that the alleged theft occurred in May this year. That’s when the Whois record changed from Namecheap Whois privacy to GoDaddy’s DomainsByProxy.

DomainsByProxy was subsequently removed to reveal a registrant in China.

Diginus filed the lawsuit in U.S. Federal District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia, where .com registry Verisign is located.

David Weslow of Wiley Rein is representing Diginus.

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Panel finds in domain investor’s favor over AguaDulce.com domain.

Pakistani Domain name investor AbdulBasit Makrani has successfully defended his domain AguaDulce.com in a UDRP and the panel found reverse domain name hijacking.

Sociedad Puerto Industrial Aguadulce S.A. operates a marine terminal in Colombia. It uses the domain name PuertoaAguaDulce.com.

Agua Dolce translates to “Sweet Water” in Spanish.

The Complainant made a number of arguments in its case. One of these was a search engine printout showing its website in response to a search for aguadulce. But the result was way down the SERPs and there are lots of other sites that show up for the term. The panel wrote:

What both Parties’ searches do demonstrate, taken together, is that a range of alternative meanings and possible uses of the term “aguadulce” (or “agua dulce”) exist, the majority of which do not denote the Complainant or its mark. There is considerable emphasis to be found on these alternative meanings or uses in the Respondent’s search and this provides adequate support for his case that he was not aware of the Complainant when he came to register the disputed domain name and that he did so to take advantage of its dictionary meaning.

This reminds me of something John Berryhill said on DNW Podcast #244: Google is sometimes the best trademark database.

The Complainant also pointed out that the Respondent has been on the receiving end of three UDRP filings at WIPO, where the instant case was filed. It neglected to point out that the Respondent won two of the cases (and didn’t respond to the first).

The port owner also said the Respondent has been subject to proceedings at another UDRP administrator, but the panelists could not find any such cases.

Makrani said this was a case of a company trying to buy a domain and then resorting to UDRP after it didn’t like the price.

The majority found that the case constitutes reverse domain name hijacking.

Howard Neu represented AbdulBasit Makrani. Brigard & Castro represented the Complainant.

Writing about the case on his blog, Makrani stated that the Complainant’s law firm “are bunch of morons and Reverse Domain Name Hijackers who not only mislead the panelists by falsely mentioning that I was involved in other cases whereas they failed to provide any such reference but they also concealed the entire proceedings and the final outcome of my last two UDRP decisions which went completely in my favor.”

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Patent suggests ways a registrar can decide which domains to display to customers.

Part of a diagram from GoDaddy’s latest patent related to domain name suggestions.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office issued patent #10,387,959 to GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) today.

The patent (pdf) for “Portfolio-based domain name recommendations” provides ways a domain name registrar can select which domain name suggestions to make to a customer.

There are many examples covered in the patent. One is to limit the number of times a domain suggestion is shown to a customer. For example, after showing it five times, the registrar may decide the customer isn’t interested and remove it from future suggestions.

Another embodiment is to show domains that are related to other ones in the customer’s portfolio based on how long the domains have been in the portfolio. GoDaddy discloses that it has found customers are more likely to register domains related to “middle-aged” domains in their portfolio as opposed to domains that have been registered a short amount of time or a very long amount of time.

Although it does not disclose what constitutes middle-aged, it gives an example of marking domain registered more than five years as old and less than one year as new.

The application includes other embodiments related to domain and SEO value.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Sedo finally allows domain owners to focus on sales instead of parking ads.

It’s a bit late to the game, but Sedo has finally created a landing page for domain names that focuses solely on the domain being for sale and doesn’t show ads.

As parking revenue dwindles and domain investors focus on sales, marketplaces have offered such landers so that buyers see a clear ‘for sale’ message that’s not cluttered by paid ads. Uniregistry and Afternic both offer for-sale landers. Domain sales platforms Efty and DAN.com only offer for-sale landers and not ones with pay-per-click ads.

To change a domain from PPC to the new landers, select the domain in your account and click on layout. Then select ‘selling’ and click save changes.

You can see an example at Laundromats.us.

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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2. Google May Change Domain Parking Requirements
3. Sedo hacked over the weekend

The story behind one man’s expensive battle to keep his domain name.

Jeffrey Black registered IMI.com in 1994. Over two decades later he found himself in court spending hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to prove that he wasn’t cybersquatting on a concrete company’s brand by registering the domain. On today’s show, Black’s attorney Mike Rodenbaugh walks us through exactly what happened: why Black registered the domain, how this case proceeded all the way to a jury trial, and what happened next.

See also:Judge’s findings document.

This week’s sponsor: Name.com.

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts to listen to the Domain Name Wire podcast on your iPhone or iPad, view on Google Play Music, or click play above or download to begin listening. (Listen to previous podcasts here.)

© DomainNameWire.com 2019. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

Related posts:

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2. NamesCon Recap Podcast – DNW Podcast #222
3. How to Sell with Brian Harbin – DNW Podcast #233

Google announced this morning that they are releasing their TLD registry platform, Nomulus, which is written in Java, under an Apache 2.0 license. The company uses the software to run their own registry for their TLDs. Portfolio TLD applicant Donuts has partnered with Google and contributed to the source code – they will also be running a public test instance of the system, which is geared towards being run on the Google Cloud Platform. So far, Rightside (NASDAQ: NAME) has been operating Donuts’ registry backend.

Also covered by:

• DomainNameWire: Google open sources domain registry, Donuts collaborates as pressure on registry providers mounts. The article focusses on the rising pressure on Domain Registry Operators, and a potential switch of platforms by Donuts away from Rightside.

Here’s the full press release:

Introducing Nomulus: an Open Source Top-Level Domain Name Registry

Date: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 8:00am PT

Author: Ben McIlwain, Software Engineer

Today, Google is proud to announce the release of Nomulus, a new open source cloud-based registry platform that powers Google’s top level domains (TLDs). We’re excited to make this piece of Internet infrastructure available to everyone.

TLDs are the top level of the Internet Domain Name System (DNS), and they collectively host every domain name on the Internet.  To manage a TLD, you need a domain name registry — a behind-the-scenes system that stores registration details and DNS information for all domain names under that TLD. It handles WHOIS queries and requests to buy, check, transfer, and renew domain names. When you purchase a domain name on a TLD using a domain name registrar, such as Google Domains, the registrar is actually conducting business with that TLD’s registry on your behalf. That’s why you can transfer a domain from one registrar to another and have it remain active and 100% yours the entire time.

The project that became Nomulus began in 2011 when the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced the biggest ever expansion of Internet namespace, aimed at improving choice and spurring innovation for Internet users. Google applied to operate a number of new generic TLDs, and built Nomulus to help run them.

We designed Nomulus to be a brand-new registry platform that takes advantage of the scalability and easy operation of Google Cloud Platform. Nomulus runs on Google App Engine and is backed by Google Cloud Datastore, a highly scalable NoSQL database. Nomulus can manage any number of TLDs in a single shared instance and supports the full range of TLD functionality required by ICANN, including the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP), WHOIS, reporting, and trademark protection. It is written in Java and is released under the Apache 2.0 license.

We hope that by providing access to our implementation of core registry functions and up-and-coming services like Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP), we can demonstrate advanced features of Google Cloud Platform and encourage interoperability and open standards in the domain name industry for registry operators like Donuts. With approximately 200 TLDs, Donuts has made early contributions to the Nomulus code base and has spun up an instance which they’ll be sharing soon.

For more information, view Nomulus on GitHub.

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