.name Grandfathered

Re:.name Grandfathered by giancarlostoro on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @12:14PM (#50443236)

> After a long and expensive battle, news just dropped that Verisign is retracting its plan to terminate 22,000 domain names and email redirects. Although they will be closing new registrations for 3rd-level .name domains, all existing domains (including this website) and email redirects will remain indefinitely.

This was what I figured SHOULD happen when they did this. Allow existing customers to keep renewing, but nobody new allowed, if a tld frees up over time, reclaim it completely and sell it off.

What they were proposing should really be illegal.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by Spivak on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @01:20PM (#50444082)

For it to be illegal I think we would have to have much stronger digital ownership laws. I would certainly support them. But for now a domain you "own" is just an entry in someone else's ledger and control is only enforced by contract for big players willing to pay.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by mzajc on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @01:25PM (#50444165)

These domains wouldn't be worth a penny if they came with a disclaimer that they can be deregistered or even taken over at any point. With a bit of luck, somebody could snatch popular last name domains and set up a catch-all mailserver.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by schoen on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @01:27PM (#50444203)

They do have such a limitation, because of things like UDRP. It's just that there are maybe some forms of restriction on the processes by which domain names can be involuntarily transferred or seized. But it's a real possibility!

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Re:.name Grandfathered by not2b on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @03:03PM (#50445543)

People persist in "buying" digital movies e-books, and games despite the fact that they can disappear at any point, without warning, because the seller's license expired or they just feel like discontinuing the service.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by schoen on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @01:26PM (#50444179)

There is a Ninth Circuit decision that domain names are a form of property

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremen_v._Cohen

but it's tricky because the domain name registries and registrars have a kind of thicket of contracts nowadays that subordinates registrants' property interests to other rules and considerations. So I don't think a court would think that a modern-day domain name registrant has property rights in a domain name that supersede all of those contractual terms.

Edit: my recollection is that Kremen v. Cohen interpreted the legal defaults that applied because Kremen registered the domain name in an era when Network Solutions didn't require registrants to agree to a contract that limited Network Solutions's liability and gave it various explicit rights and powers.

I'm not a huge ICANN expert, but I think ICANN broadly thinks the status quo is preferable to one in which registrants had stronger, less equivocal property interests in names.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by otterley on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @02:27PM (#50445046)

The Wikipedia summary of the case suggests that the ruling was much more than it was. Courts tend to rule on narrow issues, as it did here.

The question before the Court was not whether a domain name is a form of property. Both parties agreed that a domain name are a form of property; that wasn't in dispute. The Court did affirm their position in black letter law, though.

Rather, the question before the Court was whether, as intangible property, a tort of conversion claim could be made against it under California law. Previously, cases disagreed as to whether it could be recognized. The Court found that it could be.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by falcor84 on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @02:06PM (#50444734)

Agreed, but I just wanted to say that essentially every single thing anyone owns is, and has been from the invention of tally marks on clay tablets, an entry in someone's ledger.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by schoen on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @01:25PM (#50444171)

(meant to reply to the child post, moved there)

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Re:.name Grandfathered by echelon on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @01:34PM (#50444287)

Now a ".name" will be really awesome to own.

This is essentially premium real estate now.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by Macha on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @02:44PM (#50445312)

Well anyone can buy a second.name if second isn't already registered, and then set up their own first. subdomain, so most visitors aren't going to know the difference in between grandfathered in first.second.name sites and people who just bought second level domains and created their own subdomain.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by jareklupinski on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @02:47PM (#50445353)

if you're lucky, you can do something like first.sec.ond

works for many polish people who own ski resorts :)

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Re:.name Grandfathered by jayknight on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @03:01PM (#50445517)

I remember when delicious.com was just del.icio.us. I miss that site.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by Jaxkr on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @02:00PM (#50444652)

Curious what they mean by “expensive”. Did they hire a lawyer? I thought this was just an Internet outrage campaign.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by DANmode on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @02:08PM (#50444778)

> What they were proposing should really be illegal...

Where?

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Re:.name Grandfathered by gsich on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @02:16PM (#50444885)

Everywhere.

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Re:.name Grandfathered by DANmode on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @03:18PM (#50445740)

Super reasonable proposal.

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