.us domain out to bid, relaxes registrar ownership rule — NTIA puts
GoDaddy and Identity Digital will now be eligible to bid on contract.
Today, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) issued a Request for Proposals for the administration of the .us top level domain.
The government originally planned to open the RFP in January and announce a winner this month, but delayed the RFP release until today.
Under a fresh timeline, initial submissions are due May 18. At that point, the NTIA will let applicants know whether they’ve passed the first hurdle, and will give them until June 8 to submit additional documents. The government will award the contract on June 30.
Earlier this month, I wrote that the original RFP would apparently exclude all potential bidders since they couldn’t own a domain registrar that sold .us domains.
The updated document includes a carve-out that will allow registry affiliates to operate a .us registrar, subject to certain safeguards. This means GoDaddy and Identity Digital, which own domain name registrars, can now qualify.
The RFP still requires the contractor to be in the United States. Many potential bidders asked for details on this requirement. The NTIA reiterated that it must be an American firm and stated foreign majority ownership of the contractor is prohibited.
There is some wiggle room that could open this up slightly. For example, the .org registry, Public Interest Registry (PIR), manages a top level domain that meets the requirements. Still, it outsources the backend technical registry to Identity Digital, which will certainly bid on the RFP. Perhaps PIR could partner with a different backend registry for a bid, and that registry could move the required operations to the United States.
Another change in the RFP is the addition of language requiring bidders to “Include information regarding free speech safeguards to protect registrants’ First Amendment rights.” That was likely added to appease certain political interests.
.Us is right now managed by GoDaddy’s registry arm. It inherited the contract when it purchased Neustar’s domain registry business.
