TLDs coming this year? — Are Zombie

Some of these TLDs can’t string along much longer.

Hundreds of fresh top level domain names are now available. Some are doing reasonably well while others are not (to put it mildly).

Will 2015 see the first fresh TLD “failures”, in which a top level domain operator calls it quits? We might have seen it by now.

The firms I’m most concerned regarding are the ones that operate just one or two TLDs and have a big staff (i.e., lots of overhead). If they aren’t getting traction following regarding a year, I don’t think they have long to go.

ICANN tried to bake in a backup plan for failed registries by requiring them to have a credit line in the event of failure. I think that’s a funny notion; if a TLD fails, who would really back its credit line?

The most likely scenario for failed TLDs is that they’ll be gobbled up by another registry or a backend technical registry.

In some ways, we’re seeing that by now. Innovative Auctions has by now helped sell one existing TLD. .HIV and .Promo (the latter of which hasn’t even launched) will be auctioned this summer.

Failing any interest in these auctions, the backend registry providers will likely take over the day-to-day operation of failed TLDs.

Some TLDs have needlessly hobbled themselves with onerous registration restrictions. This limits interest by other parties, and ICANN might need to consider a way to relax these restrictions in the event of a TLD passing to another entity in light of a shutdown.

I’m not excited regarding the prospect of failed TLDs. But reality will catch up to a number of operators soon. Just look at the bottom of this list.