Root Zone Database

67 points by varunvkrishnan 9 years ago | 29 comments

purephase 9 years ago |

This is a crazy list. Great to see it all in one place though. I don't pay that much attention to the domain registration space any more, but has the explosion of TLDs achieved the goal of reducing .com cash runs?

It certainly seems like other TLDs have reached a level of acceptance, but my experience is not reflective of the majority of users.

Also, it's crazy to see TLDs with other languages. Very cool, and not surprising at all, but I've never seen that before.

timbowhite 9 years ago | |

Same list with filtering and retail pricing from ~50 registrars: https://tld-list.com

Disclosure: I made tld-list.com, so this comment is a shameless plug.

timdavila 9 years ago | |

If anything, the abundance of other options makes .com MORE valuable.

robalfonso 9 years ago | |

.com is still king. It's going to be a while until the others get real penetration. And some tld's are never going to take off. Either the pricing is completely unrealistic or the tld is so long you can achieve the same thing in a shorter tld.

degenerate 9 years ago | | |

Looking at you, yes you... .international

To me, the asinine part of these gTLDs is that companies can register their gTLD with sponsorship ($185K from when I last checked) yet they don't need to sell domains to the public. I understand the idea of exclusivity, but this simply shifts the profiteering racket from one set of players (domain squatters) to another (ICANN and big business).

I'm not happy with how they are doing it. I'd rather a business model be required to sell domains at $X/yr to the public (some reasonable rate), along with a yearly sponsorship instead of one-time. That would put the focus on maintaining a business capable of supporting the cost of the gTLD instead of a digital billboard and bragging rights. Maybe if that was in place, we wouldn't have stupid ones like .northwesternmutual

deathanatos 9 years ago |

  Binky Sky, LLC
  Binky Frostbite, LLC
  Binky Birch, LLC
  Binky Galley, LLC
  Binky Moon, LLC
  Binky Lake, LLC
  Binky Glen, LLC
  Silver Glen, LLC
  Holly Glen, LLC
  Grand Glen, LLC
  Magic Glen, LLC
  Magic Birch, LLC
  Magic Woods, LLC
  Magic Pass, LLC
  Fern Pass, LLC
  Big Pass, LLC

(snip, as it goes on and on) This reads like someone let their Markov chain register TLDs. Is there a rational explanation that isn't some domain-parking company grabbing up names and trying to conceal their identity by spamming the list with LLC shell companies? (And social networks get in a tizzy when I don't use my real name…)

hayleox 9 years ago | |

All of those companies are subsidiaries of Donuts: http://www.donuts.domains/ There's a complete list of all their TLDs (and the silly LLC names associated with them) here: https://domaintyper.com/new-gTLD/applicant/Donuts

I'm not sure why they formed LLCs for every domain they registered. IANA has lots of regulations and paperwork, and everything is really expensive and slow (it takes years to get a TLD registered). I'd imagine having every domain tied to its own LLC might make things easier (i.e. they can sell their TLDs by just selling the LLC, for example).

dsl 9 years ago | | |

Having each TLD application owned by a separate LLC allows the otherwise non-transferable application to be transferred if someone wants to buy .coffee from you.

jsmthrowaway 9 years ago | | |

It's a common practice for liability isolation in real estate management. Every Carmel property is its own LLC. Maybe similar thinking?

kijeda 9 years ago | |

I don't think it is an attempt to conceal their identity, if you look at the details of the registrations you can see these are all operated by Donuts (http://donuts.co). Perhaps it is facilitate management and future adjustments to their portfolio.

hayleox 9 years ago |

I don't understand why so many corporations have gone through the very-expensive years-long process of getting their brand name as a TLD, and then proceeded to not use their TLD at all. The only brand name TLD I've seen in real world use is .google (https://domains.google, https://blog.google).

If you google "site:.whatever" ("whatever" being the TLD you want), you can see all the sites with that TLD that Google knows about. Very few of them have any other sites besides "nic.whatever" (which is just an information page about the TLD). I am seeing a few exceptions though: http://go.java, http://interactive.cbs

vog 9 years ago | |

> I don't understand why [...] corporations [...] getting their brand name as a TLD, and then [...] not use their TLD

I hope this doesn't sound too snarky, but:

Maybe they know how worthless that TLD is, and just want to ensure they can't be damaged by competition registering those TLDs. After they secured those, they probably didn't want to waste even more money into that topic.

wheelerwj 9 years ago | | |

exactly this. its nothing more than brand/reputation management. 200k is a pretty small sum for the security of that.

wichert 9 years ago | |

Amazon uses their .aws tld as well. For example quicksight is hosted under https://quicksight.aws, and Chime can be found at https://chime.aws

varunvkrishnan 9 years ago |

The list of domains owned by Google (Charleston Road Registry Inc.) & Amazon (Amazon Registry Services, Inc.) probably give a good idea about their future (predictable) priorities (Google - Ads, Android while Amazon's list looks more shopping oriented)

Any ideas on what they they plan on doing with guge & esq domains?

jtokoph 9 years ago | |

I would guess they would target .esq to Attorneys. Someone else has .attorney so I wonder if Google tried for that one too.

dastbe 9 years ago | |

guge is the pinyin for google in china

varunvkrishnan 9 years ago | | |

That makes sense now.. thanks!

cornchips 9 years ago | |

Humorously expanding on that:

boo = surprises

eat = gluttony

esq = lawyers

page = egocentricity

olegkikin 9 years ago |

    .youtube 	generic 	Charleston Road Registry Inc.

Is Google OK with that?

jhalstead 9 years ago | |

Yeah, that's a subsidiary of their's. See #6 in https://www.registry.google/about/faqs.html, and then https://goo.gl/maps/ZXcGhKqotHt for likely motivation behind the name.

Binky Sky, LLC Binky Frostbite, LLC Binky Birch, LLC Binky Galley, LLC Binky Moon, LLC Binky Lake, LLC Binky Glen, LLC Silver Glen, LLC Holly Glen, LLC Grand Glen, LLC Magic Glen, LLC Magic Birch, LLC Magic Woods, LLC Magic Pass, LLC Fern Pass, LLC Big Pass, LLC